DUCATIONAL 



OSAICS 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS 



A COLLECTION 



FROM MANY WRITERS (CHIEFLY MODERN) OF THOUGHTS 

BEARING ON EDUCATIONAL QUESTIONS OF 

THE DAY. 



I 



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// 



BY ^ 

THOMAS j! MORGAN, 

Principal Rhode Island State Normal School. 





BOSTON : 

SILVER, ROGERS, & CO., PUBLISHERS, 

50 Bromfield Street. 

1887. 



^f^ 



Copyright, 1887, by 
SILVER, ROGERS, & COMPANY. 



J. S. CusHiNG & Co., Printers, Boston. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 

The thought of compiling a volume of choice selections from 
different educational writers is by no means a new one to me. I 
have long had it in mind, and have been deterred from the attempt 
partly by the labor involved in copying, and partly by a steady pres- 
sure of regular work. But — thanks to the type-writer and to one 
whose industry is only surpassed' by her skill and good taste — the 
thought has at last become a reality, and all that remains is a pref- 
atory note, a sort of inscription over the portal, for the information 
of those who look within. 

Let me say frankly that it makes no high pretensions. It is not 
a pedagogical encyclopaedia in any sense of the word, nor does it 
profess to be exhaustive in any direction. It is very far from being 
a systematic treatise on education ; on the contrary, I have aimed 
to avoid any rigid philosophical arrangement, and have purposely 
omitted any bibliographical or biographical notes, as being foreign 
to its simple character and aim. I cannot claim that every good 
writer is represented, or that each is represented by his best. I 
have been constantly embarrassed by the abundance of riches, and 
sorely perplexed what to leave out. It would have been easier to 
make a volume of twice the size; and, should another edition be 
called for, considerable additions may be made. 

All that is claimed for the volume is, that everything in it is worth 
reading. 

Those who are acquainted with educational literature will recog- 
nize many familiar paragraphs and favorite passages. 



4 PREFATORY NOTE. 

Those who lack either opportunity, time, or inclination to read 
the numerous writings on Education, and who still desire to know 
something of the drift of educational thought, will find it here in 
brief compass. 

Those who love beautiful thoughts on great themes will meet 
with many such in these mosaics. 

Teachers who have a few leisure moments, interspersed with hard 
hours of toil, will find much to interest, to comfort, to stimulate, 
and to help. 

While especially designed for teachers, it is full of thought-pro- 
voking matter for the intelligent parent, and for all those who are 
interested in that greatest of all living questions — the proper edu- 
cation of the ten million youth of America who, in our private and 
public schools, are being trained for life's duties, pleasures, and 

privileges. 

* T. J. M. 

Providence, R.I., July, 1887. 



CONTENTS. 



The brief selections without titles are omitted from this table. See List of Authors. 



PAGE 

Special Aptitudes. _. Matthew Arnold 15 

The Living, not the Dead Cha^-les F. Adams, Jr 16 

Legislators and Education Aristotle 17 

Inspiration Better than Instruction Martut B. Anderson , 18 

Of Teaching History Herbert B. Adatns 19 

Attainable Ends Sarah Austin 21 

Linguistic Study and Real Knowledge. .Martin B. Andersoii 21 

Study of Political Science /. W. Andrews 23 

Of Co-education James B. Angell 23 

Talking and Learning Roger AscJiam 25 

The Best Talent for Secondary Schools. . Joseph Alden 25 

Fetich Worship Charles F. Adams, Jr 26 

The Instinct for Beauty Matthew Arnold 28 

Severe Study Jacob Abbott 29 

Two Aspects of Industrial Education .... Felix Adler 30 

Public verstis Private Education Thomas Arnold 31 

Education of the Negro a Success S. C. Armstrong 32 

News-rooms and Libraries Duke of Argyll 32 

Polished Marble Joseph Addison 2>3 

Music and the Greeks Oscar Brotvning 34 

Fiction and Education Alexander Bain 34 

Chairs of Didactics J. Baldwin 35 

For Two Worlds Henry Barnard 36 

Proper Text-Books Albert G. Boyden -yj 

Slowly Ripened Fruit George Bancroft 38 

Of Philosophy John Bascom ^^ 

Knowledge for Pains Isaac Barrow 39 

Indigestible Knowledge E. E. Bowen 39 

The Kindergarten Baroness Buloiv 41 

Children and Nature J. B. Basedow 42 



5 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The English Language and Literature . . . Eugene Bouton 43 

The Dignity of History George Bancroft 44 

Single-stringed Methods ,...,, .J. R. Buchanan 45 

Of Learning Francis Bacon . . ."T 45 

Development of Individuality C. W. Bardeen 46 

Self, not Ancestors Sir Tho7nas Browne 47 

Ideal School Officers Tho7nas W. Bicknell 48 

Dwarfed Faculties .F. A. P. Barnard 48 

All Complete H. W. Beecher 49 

How I was Educated S. C. Bartlett 49 

Teaching a Fine Art Edward Brooks 50 

Inspire a Love of Knowledge E. E. Bowen 51 

The Teacher Taught Samuel T. Coleridge .... 53 

Moral Lessons Incidentally Elizabeth B. Chace 54 

Application \ Caroline F. Cornwallis 55 

Prodigies Condillac 55 

Things, not their Shadows y. A Comenius 55 

Intellectual Force W. E. Channing 56 

Theory and Practice James Freeman Clarke 57 

Moral Teachings of History James Currie 58 

Diligence . , Thomas Carlyle 59 

Marcus Aurelius Gabriel Compayre 60 

Examining Boards J. W. Corthell 61 

The Country's Requirements Cicero 62 

How I learned Oratory Henry Clay 62 

Essentials First Paul A. Chadbourne . , 63 

Of Books W. E. Channing 63 

The Problem Condor cet 64 

Grecian Pedagogy Gabriel Compayre 65 

The New Civilization Charles Carleton Coffin 65 

Value of Knowledge Cicero 66 

Object-teaching N. A. Calkins 66 

Save us from Routine Henry Calderwood 68 

Experience and Observation W. E. Channing 69 

Activity Necessary Condillac 69 

Dangers of the Elective System Franklin Carter 69 

The Statesman's Care N. H. R. Dawson ,-'. 70 

The Teacher's Opportunity Ti?notky Dwight. 71 

Degrading the Public Schools J. W, Dickinson 72 

Oral Instruction Larkin Dunton ^i. 



CONTENTS. 7 

PAGE 

Art Study M. A. Dwigkt 74 

Recent History G. Diesterweg 75 

Difficult Work Needed J. W. Dickinson 75 

Contact with Pupils Henry Darling 76 

A Habit of Work Dupanloup 77 

Practical and Classical Culture S. T. Dutton 77 

The Position of Honor A. W. Edson 79 

Man's Three Teachers Edward Everett 79 

Thinking Alone Ralph Waldo Emerson 81 

Tenure of Office -. Charles W. Eliot 82 

Moral Principles Erasmus 83 

Normal Schools a Success Richard Edzvards 83 

No Dark Continents .- yohn Eaton 84 

Individual Possibility and Human Aid . . Edivard Everett 85 

Educated Public Opinion George F. Edmunds 87 

Cultivated Manners Ralph Waldo Emersott 87 

The Greek Language C. C. Felton 88 

Read the Originals Benjamin Franklin 89 

Will it Pay ? Alice E. Free7nan 90 

Neglecting the Mind Michael Faraday 91 

Geography, Physical and Political J. G. Fitch 92 

Open Eyes y- A. Froude 93 

The Teacher's Monument Thomas Fuller 94 

Facts and Principles J- A. Froude 94 

The Life Sciences Michael Faraday 95 

Cultivate the Fancy Thomas Fuller 96 

Mathematical Sciences J. G. Fitch 97 

Unity in Variety Froebel 99 

Dangerous Ambition Guizot 100 

Reverence for Boys James A. Garfield lOO 

Baby Scientists John M. Gregory loi 

English Literature J- H. Gilmore 102 

The Study of Psychology Daniel C. Gilvian 103 

The Teacher a Student , . . . Daniel C. Gilman 104 

Time-servers Joseph John Gurney 105 

Moral Enthusiasm D. S. Gregory 105 

A Plea for the Classics Arnold Green 106 

Education Life-long T. S. Grimke 108 

A Neglected Study Asa Gray 109 

Educated Women a Necessity Parke Godwin no 



8 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The Fascination of Greek ... Merrill Edwards Gates 1 1 1 

Early Impressions Goeihe 112 

Knowledge and Discipline Da?iiel B. Hagar 113 

Machine Teachers and Methods John Hancock 113 

Philosophical Teaching B. A. Hinsdale 114 

Self-educated Men Mark Hopkins 115 

A Draught of Nectar J. C. Hare 116 

The Finest of the Fine Arts Erederic D. Huntington. . . 116 

A Liberal Education Thomas H Htixley 119 

Reconstructive Power E. O. Haven 119 

Study of Principles J. W. Hales 121 

Intellectual Living Philip Gilbert Hamertort ... 122 

The Classics a Dehght , Thos. Wentworth Higginson 123 

How I was Educated Edzvard Everett Hale 125 

A Lofty Aim Julia Ward Howe 126 

The Educator's Responsibility George S. Hillard 127 

We Work for Culture Philip Gilbert Hamerton. . . 127 

Physical Science Thomas H Huxley 129 

On Reading Wisely Erederick Harrison 130 

The School in History William T. Harris 131 

Trained Teachers Thomas Hunter 133 

Christianity and the Public Schools Archibald Alexajider Hodge 134 

The Man, not the Mind Erederic D. Huntington . . . 135 

English Letters T. W. Hunt 136 

True Intellectual Growth Henry N". Hudson 137 

The Study of Geometry Thomas Hill 138 

Vocal Music in Public Schools H. E. Holt 139 

Scientific Ruts August Wilhelm Hofmann. . 140 

Education a Birthright Edward S. Joynes 141 

Mind, not Matter Samuel Johnson 142 

Worshipping Self-Made Men L. R. Klemm 143 

Systematic Arrangement David Kay 144 

Submission to Authority David Kay 145 

Then He is Educated Joseph Landon 146 

Men Grown, not Manufactured . . . .' S. S. Laurie 147 

The Touchstone of Reason John Locke 148 

Neglect of Accomplishments Mary Lyon 149 

Girls and Questions of the Day Mary A. Liverjnore ....... 149 

The Office of Letters Joseph Lakanal 150 

Education desires the Best La Cholotais 150 



CONTENTS. Q 

PAGE 

Education a Perpetual Process John Lalor 150 

All-around Education Janus Rtissell Lozvell 152 

Meditation and Discourse John Locke 153 

Knowledge of the Scriptures Tayler Lewis , . . . . 154 

The Classics and Discipline J- L. Lincoln ^54 

Culture of the Will .-.,.. -5". S. Laurie 156 

Not Rules, but Character JoJm Morley 157 

The Great Regenerator J- L). Morell 157 

Shameful Inefficiency John Stuart Mill 157 

The Corner-stone John Stuart Mill 159 

Inspiration of Curiosity Hugh Miller 159 

The Shell and the Kernel Thos. Babington Macaulay, 160 

Conversation and Travel Michel Montaigne 161 

A Third Kind of Knowledge John Morley 161 

The Highest Perfection John Milton 162 

Grammatical Studies C. Marcel 163 

Applied Thought John Stuart Mill 164 

Never Ending David ALasson 164 

Physical Culture T. T. Munger 165 

High Ideals James McCosh 167 

Wanted : Well-balanced Minds William A. Mowry 168 

Concentration of Purpose William Mathews 169 

Overworked Teachers Maria Mitchell 1 70 

Industrial Schools Needed Arthur Mc Arthur 171 

Presumption of Brains A. P. Marble 172 

Which, a Farce or a Tragedy? James Madison 173 

The Pilgrims and Education LLorace ALann 173 

Mother Ideas Thomas J. Morgan 1 74 

Conversation a Fine Art B. G. Northrup 1 76 

Twilight Regions Nicole 177 

History and Practical Knowledge Niemeyer 177 

Training of the Eye LLiram Orcutt 178 

The Sciences closely Related Denison Olmstead 1 79 

Cramming Joseph Payne o . . . 180 

Too Difficult Noah Porter 180 

Action the Highest End F. B. Palmer 182 

A Plea for Electives ,..G.H. Palmer 183 

Electives and Natural Deficiency A. P. Peabody 185 

Kindle your Own Fire Plutarch 1S6 

Exceptions to the Rule Theodore Parker 187 



lO 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 
187 



Interest Indispensable 

A Happy School 

A Work for Eternity 

Value of Educational History 

Early linguistic Training 

The Study of Physiology 

Reading and Re-reading 

The Head and the Hand 

We Learn to do by Doing Francis W. Parker 194 

Experiment and Transition F. V. N. Painter 195 



Pestalozzi , 

Pestalozzi . . . , 189 

yo/in D. Philbrick 189 

William H. Payne 190 

Noah Porter 190 

James Paget 191 

E. T. Palgrave 192 

William H. Payne 193 



Freedom, not Force 

The Teaching of the Jesuits . . . 
Ratich and Ascham Compared . 

Philip's Teacher 

Enriching the Mind 

Things, not Words 



Plato 

Robert Herbert Quick . 

Robert Herbert Quick . 

Quintilian 

Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

J. J. Rousseau 



Man and Nature Francois Rabelais . 



. 196 

• 197 

• 197 
. 198 

. 199 

. 201 

. 201 

A Hard Mode of Thought E. du Bois-Reytnond 202 

Learning with Effort J. J. Rousseau . . , 202 

Talent and Genius Johann K. F. Rosenkranz . . 203 

On Teaching Mathematics Otis H. Robinson 204 

A Desirable Faculty Jo/in Ruskin 205 

A Great Need E. G. Robinson 206 

The Art of Reading Charles F. Richardson 208 

Heart Education John Ruskin 210 

Not a Slave to Maxims Frederick W. Robertson 210 

A Warning Lord Shaftesbury 211 

An Unsolved Problem E. P. Seaver 211 

The Teacher of the Future Barnas Sears , 212 

Educational Systems a Growth John Swett 213 

'Life Education Samuel Smiles 214 

The Home or the Nation Sa?nuel Smiles 215 

Important Knowledge and Belles-lettres. .Herbert Spencer 215 

An Element of Power William E. Sheldon 216 

^Esthetic Training James Stilly ., 217 

School Knowledge and Daily Life ..... .Edith Sim cox 218 

Wisdom and Knowledge Robert Southey 219 

The Head and the Heart J. C. F. Schiller 220 

Subsidizing all Sources Thomas B. Stockwell 220 

What Knov/ledge is of Most Worth? . . . . Herbert Spencer 222 



CONTENTS. II 

PAGE 

The Gifts of a Liberal Education E. R. Sill 223 

Intellectual and Moral Culture James Sully 224 

Natural Order of Development Arthur Schopenhauer 225 

A Strong Head and a Sound Heart Willia7n G. T. Shedd 226 

Many in One Sir James Stephen 227 

Accuracy ; Lord Stanley 227 

In Exile Seneca 228 

In a Fog . , Arthttr Schopenhauer 228 

Youthful Discoverers Herbert Spencer 229 

Education for Citizenship Homer B. Sprague ........ 230 

The Science of Government Joseph Story 232 

A Conversation Class ^ Kate Sanborn 233 

Contentment at Home Seneca 234 

An Ideal School J. Dornian Steele 234 

A Strong Protest George Sand 234 

The Objective Order Antonio Rosmini Serbati. . . 236 

Religion the Source of Learning Julius H. Seelye 237 

The Teachings of Experience Frederick Temple 238 

The World still Young John Tyndall 240 

A Bit of Advice William M. Thackeray .... 242 

The Teacher's Responsibility T. Tate 242 

How to succeed Archbishop Tillotson 243 

The Socratic Method William S. Tyler 243 

The Duty of Scholarship John Tetlozv 245 

A Mature Mind Isaac Taylor 245 

Training the Object of Education Ediuard Thring 246 

A Misfortune /. Todhunter 246 

Equal Education for Men and Women. .H. S. Tarbell 247 

Early Instruction in Music Eben Tourjee 248 

Physics and Culture John Ty^tdall 249 

Habits in the Gristle William AI. Taylor 250 

Clear Thought, Correct Judgment Frederick Temple 252 

Educating Conditions J- H. Vincent 252 

How to teach Morality Talleyrand 253 

Religious Instruction Von Gentz 253 

Moody, and not IngersoU A. E. Winship 254 

Intellectual Development . .Francis Wayland 254 

Why not Both? William Whewell 256 

Eyes and No Eyes J- ^f- Wilson 258 

Brains, Sir ,E, E, White 259 



12 CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



The Classics, and More too William C. Wilkinson 260 

Mathematics promotes Civilization Willia?n Whezvell 261 

Trade Schools Francis A. Walker 262 

Moral Instruction Theodore Divight Woolsey . . 2.()2i 

Of Reasoning Richard Whately , . . . 264 

Of Drawing Francis Wayland 264 

Refined Tastes Emma Willard 265 

Higher Education of Women Andrew D. White 266 

Original Paintings ,. Isaac Watts 267 

Manual Training-schools C. M. Woodward 267 

The Temperance Reform in Schools Frances E. Willard 268 

Instructors in Justice Xenophon 269 

Talent and Virtue ..,...,... Edward Young ,.,... 270 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



3>@<< 



It is a shame not to have been educated ; for he who 
has received an education differs from him who has not, 
as the Hving does from the dead.- 



Aristotle. 



It is clear that in whatever it is our duty to act, 
those matters also it is our duty to study. 

Thomas Arnold. 



SPECIAL APTITUDES. 

The ideal of a general, liberal training is to carry us 
to a knowledge of ourselves and the world. We are 
called to this knowledge by special aptitudes which are 
born with us ; the grand thing in teaching is to have 
faith that some aptitudes for this every one has. This 
one's special aptitudes are for knowing men — the study 
of the humanities ; that one's special aptitudes are for 
knowing the world — the study of nature. The circle 
of knowledge comprehends both, and we should all have 
some notion, at any rate, of the whole circle of knowl- 
edge. The rejection of the humanities by the realists, 
the rejection of the study of nature by the humanists, 
are alike ignorant. He whose aptitudes carry him to 



1 6 EDUCAJIONAL MOSAICS. ' ■ 

the study of nature should have some notion of the 
humanities ; he whose aptitudes carry him to the hu- 
manities should have some notion of the phenomena 
and laws of nature. Evidently, therefore, the begin- 
nings of a liberal culture should be the same for both. 
The mother tongue, the elements of Latin and of the 
chief modern languages, the elements of history, of 
arithmetic and geometry, of geography, and of the 
knowledge of nature, should be the study of the lower 
classes in all secondary schools, and should be the same 
for all boys at this stage. So far, therefore, there is no 
reason for a division of schools. But then comes a 
bifurcation, according to the boy's aptitudes and aims. 
Either the study of the humanities or the study of 
nature is henceforth to be the predominating part of 
his instruction. 

Matthew Arnold. 



THE LIVING AND NOT THE DEAD. 

Among men of my own generation I do both admire 
and envy those who I am told make it a daily rule to 
read a little of Homer or Thucydides, of Horace or 
Tacitus. I wish I could do the same ; and yet I must 
frankly say I should not do it if I could. Life, after all, 
is limited, and I belong enough to the present to feel 
satisfied that I could employ that little time each day 
both more enjoyably and more profitably if I should 
devote it to keeping pace with modern thought, as it 
finds expression even in the ephemeral pages of the 
despised review. Do what he will, no man can keep 
pace with that wonderful modern thought; and if I 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. ly 

must choose, — and choose I must, — I would rather 
learn something daily from the living who are to perish, 
than daily muse with the immortal dead. Yet for the 
purpose of my argument I do not for a moment dispute 
the superiority — I am ready to say the hopeless, the 
unattainable superiority — of the classic masterpieces. 
They are sealed books to me, as they are to at least 
nineteen out of twenty of the graduates of our colleges ; 
and we can neither affirm nor deny that in them, and in 
them alone, are to be found the choicest thoughts of the 
human mind and the most perfect forms of human 
speech. 

Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 



It is clearly the law of our nature, that the triumphs 
of Intellect are to be gained only by laborious thought, 
and by the gains of one generation being made the 
starting-point for the acquisition of the next. 

Duke of Argyll. 



LEGISLATORS AND EDUCATION. 

That the education of youth ought to form the prin- 
cipal part of the legislator's attention, cannot be a doubt, 
since education first moulds, and afterwards sustains the 
various modes of government. The better and more 
perfect the systems of education, the better and more 
perfect the plan of government it is intended to intro- 
duce and uphold. In this important object, fellow-citi- 
zens are all equally and deeply concerned ; and as they 
are all united in one common work for one common 



1 8 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

purpose, their education ought to be regulated by the 
general consent, and not abandoned to the blind decision 
of chance or to idle caprice. 

Aristotle. 



INSPIRATION BETTER THAN INSTRUCTION. 

The teacher of the future must have a comprehensive 
idea of the condition of modern thought in all depart- 
ments and the power and learning of a master in that 
which he assumes to teach. He must be able to go 
behind all text-books and manuals, make his own analy- 
sis of his subject, and be capable of bringing out fresh 
and original conceptions of his field of study. The 
teacher who cons over a set of passages or formulas till 
he gets them by heart and then, abandoning vigorous 
investigation, plods on in the same tread-mill round for 
a score of years, is guilty of obtaining his salary by 
false pretences. He only can teach who looks down 
upon the elements of his department, from the heights 
of broad and solid attainment. Moreover, whatever his 
knowledge may be, he cannot teach with vigor after he 
ceases to be a daily learner. He must keep the ma- 
chinery of his own mind hot with action, if he would 
excite activity in the minds of his students. Example 
is better than precept, inspiration is better than instruc- 
tion. When a class of students go out of the lecture 
room red in the face and wax eloquent over the subject- 
matter of their studies, and delay their dinner hour in 
the absorbing heat of their intellectual combat, the 
teacher's work is more than half accomplished. Like 
all human institutions, the success of the college of the 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 19 

future, in the best sense of the term, must be a question 
of men. That education is the best, as a general rule, 
which brings the student into face-to-face contact and 
relation with the greatest number of magnetic, control- 
ling, and formative minds. It is not enough that a 
teacher be learned ; he must be earnest, must love his 
work, and love young men ; he must enter into an un- 
feigned sympathy with them in all their mental and 
moral life ; he must pour out upon them the results of 
his reading, his thought, and experience, with unsparing 
prodigality, forgetful of himself and his own reputation ; 
even willing, like a true mother, to give up his own 
mental being if he can only see the life of other souls 
springing into power under his hand. 

Martin B. Anderson. 



Education and instruction are, according to the use 
of language, two different things ; the former including 
the whole of physical, moral, and intellectual develop- 
ment, but the latter applicable more properly to the 
training of the intellect. 

Aretinus. 



OF TEACHING HISTORY. 

The main difficulty with existing methods of teach- 
ing history seems to be that the subject is treated as a 
record of dead facts, and not as a living science. Pupils 
fail to realize the vital connection between the past and 
the present ; they do not understand that ancient his- 
tory was the dawn of a light which is still shining 



20 EDUCATWNAL MOSAICS. 

on ; they do not grasp the essential idea of history, 
which is the growing self-knowledge of a living, pro- 
gressive age. Etymologically and practically, the study 
of history is simply a learning by inquiry. According 
to Professor Droysen, who is one of the most eminent 
historians in Berlin, the historical method is merely to 
understand by means of research. Now it seems en- 
tirely practicable for every teacher and student of his- 
tory to promote, in a limited way, the "know thyself" 
of the nineteenth century by original investigation of 
things not yet fully known, and by communicating to 
others the results of his individual study. The pursuit 
of history may thus become an active instead of a pas- 
sive process ; an increasing joy instead of a depressing 
burden. Students will thus learn that history is not 
entirely bound up in text-books ; that it does not con- 
sist altogether in what this or that learned authority has 
to say about the world. What the world believes con- 
cerning itself, after all that men have written, and what 
the student thinks of the world, after viewing it with 
the aid of guide-books and with his own eyes, — these 
are matters of some moment in the developmental proc- 
ess of that active self-knowledge and philosophic reflec- 
tion which make history a living science instead of a 
museum of facts and of books "as dry as dust." Works 
of history, the so-called standard authorities, are likely 
to become dead specimens of humanity unless they con- 
tinue in some way to quicken the living age. But 
written history seldom fails to accomplish this end, and 
even antiquated works often continue their influence if 
viewed as progressive phases of human self-knowledge. 
Monuments and inscriptions can never grow old so long 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 21 

as the race is young. New meaning is put into ancient 
record ; fresh garlands are hung upon broken statues ; 
new temples are built from classic materials, and the 
world rejoices at its constant self -renewal. 

Herbert B. Adams- 



ATTAINABLE ENDS. 

The appropriate and attainable ends of a good edu- 
cation are the possession of gentle and kindly sympa- 
thies ; the sense of self-respect and of the respect of 
fellowmen ; the free exercise of the intellectual facul- 
ties ; the gratification of a curiosity that *^ grows by 
what it feeds on," and yet finds food forever ; the 
power of regulating the habits and the business of life, 
so as to extract the greatest possible portion of comfort 
out of small means ; the refining and tranquillizing en- 
joyment of the beautiful in nature and art, and the 
kindred perception of the beauty and nobility of vir- 
tue ; the strengthening consciousness of duty fulfilled ; 
and, to crown all, " the peace which passeth all under- 
standing." 

Sarah Austin. 



LINGUISTIC STUDY AND REAL KNOWLEDGE. 

The ends of discipline in all linguistic study must be 
made with constant additions to real knowledge in the 
largest sense of the terms. There should be a constant 
aim in the study of Greek and Latin, especially to intro- 
duce the student into the heart of ancient life, so that 
its inner "form and pressure" shall be so stamped upon 



22 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

the pupil's mind that all ancient art, culture, politics, 
and civilization shall be reproduced by the means of the 
very sentences which he subjects to analysis in his daily 
tasks. Thucydides and Tacitus should be not only text- 
books of Greek and Latin, but of history, of morals, of 
political economy, and philosophy as well. Plato and 
Aristotle should be read not only to learn Greek syntax, 
but for instruction in all the best thoughts of a great 
era in the world's intellectual life — as a necessary prep- 
aration for all the philosophical questions of to-day. 
The old masters of literature should be read and tried 
by such canons of criticism as we apply to the many- 
sided and thoughtful productions of our own age. In 
studying ancient authors, in reconciling their contradic- 
tory statements, in correcting their personal and class 
prejudices, and sifting out fact from legend, and patri- 
otic concealment and exaggeration from real truth, the 
learner should receive a training in weighing evidence, 
testing the competency of witnesses, and handling the 
laws of interpretation, which shall prepare him for all 
the sternest conflicts of business, scholastic or political 
life. I have spoken of our tongue as a part of a college 
curriculum. I believe that its origin should be studied 
in our immediate mother-tongues, the Anglo Saxon and 
Norman French, so that while our young men shall be 
taught all the elegance of expression which our best 
writers illustrate, they may also learn to have faith in 
the picturesqueness and graphic power of those native 
and homely idioms which are the chosen vehicle of all 
who would successfully wield the minds and the hearts 
of the rank and file of society. 

Martin B. Anderson. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 23 

And the plea that this or that man has no time for 
culture will vanish as soon as we begin to examine seri- 
ously our present use of our time. 

Matthew Arnold. 



STUDY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 

Another reason for the study of Political Science in 
college is, that thereby is laid a real foundation on which 
to build. Knowledge in this department is not, indeed, 
like mathematical or chemical knowledge, where the 
student must begin at the beginning, but even this to 
be of any service must be obtained systematically. All 
our political speeches, and a large part of the newspaper 
articles, assume a certain degree of knowledge on the 
part of the hearer or reader. Without this previous 
knowledge much that is heard and read is not fully com- 
prehended. This would be true if the speakers and 
writers were themselves fully masters of their subject. 
But in too many cases they speak and write. of that of 
which their own knowledge is quite superficial. We 
may safely say that to a large extent the people are but 
little the wiser for the political matter which they hear 
and read. But with a definite knowledge of the leading 
features of our system, and of the more important facts 
of our political history, there would be constant accu- 
mulations of knowledge, and a fair understanding of 
current political events. 

I. W. Andrews. 



OF CO-EDUCATION. 

It has been objected — and the objection, if well 
founded, would, .to my mind, be^a most serious one — 



24 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

that women cannot, as a rule, be educated in the class- 
rooms with men without losing that womanly delicacy 
which forms so charming a grace of true womanly char- 
acter. Here, it seems to me, a priori reasoning is of 
little worth. The appeal must be to experience, which 
has been large enough in several important colleges to 
determine whether the objection is well taken. I am 
prepared to say that, so far as my observation has ex- 
tended, either in studying the character of our women 
graduates or of those of other colleges, the objection has 
no foundation in fact. The American young man, how- 
ever rude he may sometimes be with those of his own 
sex, is habitually courteous to the other sex. I see no 
reason to believe that the conditions of life in a well- 
ordered college where both sexes are instructed are any 
more unfriendly to the cultivation or preservation of 
feminine delicacy and sensibility than the usual condi- 
tions of life in American society outside of the college. 

Perhaps jjthe most serious fear cherished concerning 
the admission of women to colleges with men was that 
their health would be sacrificed. I confess that I was 
formerly not without solicitude upon this point myself. 
But I think that those who have had the best opportuni- 
ties for observing the actual effect of college work on 
young women share my conviction that the solicitude 
we felt in advance has not been justified. We believe 
that if a young woman is in good health when she en- 
ters college, has fair abilities, will use common prudence 
in regulating her life, will not attempt to give too much 
time to social pleasures, but will study and live in a nat- 
ural, sensible manner, she will not suffer in health, but 
will often gain in strength, by the regularity and stimu- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



25 



lation of her college duties. At any rate, there are no 
facts, so far as I know, which indicate that the strain 
upon the physical strength is greater in the life of the 
women who are in the colleges with men than in the 
separate colleges for women. The figures gathered by 
the Association of College Alumnae and published by 
the Massachusetts Labor Bureau, to show the effects of 
college life on women, seem to afford no ground for an 
unfavorable judgment on the colleges in which the sexes 
are taught together. The chief objections which have 
been raised to the joint education of the sexes seem, 
therefore, to have but little, if any, weight. Women can 
be hereafter, as they have been now for years, safely and 
wisely educated in the class-rooms v/ith men. 

James B. Angell. 



TALKING AND LEARNING. 

An. quick inventors and ready, fair speakers must be 
careful that to their goodness of nature they add also in 
any wise study, labor, leisure, learning, and jud^ient, 
and then they shall indeed pass all other (as I know 
some do in whom all those qualities are fully planted), 
or else if they give over-much to their wit, and over-little 
to their labor and learning, they will soonest over-reach 
in talk, and farthest come behind in writing, whatsoever 
they take in hand. 

Roger Ascham. 



THE BEST TALENT FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS. 

I INSIST that the interests of college and of high cul- 
ture require that the best educational talent be assigned 



26 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

to the academy. If you miLst have a poor teacher, put 
him in the college, instead of placing him at the head 
of the academy. He will do less harm in the college. 
I may be allowed to suggest that in every institution 
the best teacher should take the lowest class. . . . 

The true teacher teaches himself; that is, he im- 
presses his own character, his own intellectual and moral 
habits, on his pupils. Hence, as Milton says of the poet, 
" he ought to be a pattern of the best and honorablest 
things." If the principal of the academy is the right 
kind of a man, he can do more for his pupil than the 
college professor can. He can give to his mind a direc- 
tion which shall continue through college and life. 

Joseph Alden. 



It is only the superior men in a science, or in an art, 
those who have sounded all its depths, and have carried 
it to its farthest limits, who are capable of composing 
such elementary treatises as are desirable. 



Arbogast. 



FETICH-WORSHIP. 



For myself, I cannot but think that the species of 
sanctity which has now, ever since the revival of learn- 
ing, hedged the classics, is destined soon to disappear. 
Yet it is still strong ; indeed, it is about the only patent 
of nobility which has survived the levelling tendencies 
of the age. A man who at some period of his life has 
studied Latin and Greek is an educated man ; he who 
has not done so is only a self-taught man. Not to have 
studied Latin, irrespective of any present ability to read 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



27 



it, is accounted a thing to be ashamed of ; to be unable 
to speak French is merely an inconvenience. I submit 
that it is high time that this superstition should come 
to an end. I do not profess to speak with authority, 
but I have certainly mixed somewhat with the world, 
its labors and its literatures, in several countries, through 
a third of a century ; and I am free to say, that whether 
viewed as a thing of use, as an accomplishment, as a 
source of pleasure, or as a mental training, I would 
rather myself be familiar with the German tongue and 
its literature than be equally familiar with the Greek. 
I would unhesitatingly make the same choice for my 
child. What I have said of German as compared with 
Greek, I will also say of French as compared with 
Latin. On this last point I have no question. Authority 
and superstition apart, I am indeed unable to see how 
an intelligent man, having any considerable acquaint- 
ance with the two literatures, can, as respects either 
richness or beauty, compare the Latin with the French ; 
while as a worldly accomplishment, were it not for 
fetich-worship, in these days of universal travel the man 
would be properly regarded as out of his mind* who 
preferred to be able to read the odes of Horace, rather 
than to feel at home in the accepted neutral language 
of all refined society. This view of the case is not yet 
taken by the colleges. 

" The slaves of custom and established mode, 
With pack-horse constancy we keep the road, 
Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells, 
True to the jingling of our leader's bells." 

And yet I am practical and of this world enough to 
believe that in a utilitarian aVid scientific age the living 



28 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

will not forever be sacrificed to the dead. The worship 
even of the classical fetich draweth to a close ; and I 
shall hold that I was not myself sacrificed wholly in 
vain, if what I have said here may contribute to so shap- 
ing the policy of Harvard that it will not much longer 
use its prodigious influence towards indirectly closing 
for its students, as it closed for me, the avenues to mod- 
ern life and the fountains of living thought. 

Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 



THE INSTINCT FOR BEAUTY. 

I CANNOT really think that humane letters are in danger 
of being thrust out from their leading place in education, 
in spite of the array of authorities against them at this 
moment. So long as human nature is what it is, their 
attractions will remain irresistible. They will be studied 
more rationally, but they will not lose their place. What 
will happen will rather be that there will be crowded 
into education other matters besides, far too many. 
There will be, perhaps, a period of unsettlement and 
confusion and false tendency ; but letters will not in the 
end lose their leading place. If they lose it for a time, 
they will get it back again. We shall be brought back 
to them by our wants and aspirations. And a poor 
humanist may possess his soul in patience, neither strive 
nor cry, admit the energy and brilliancy of the partisans 
of physical science, and their present favor with the 
public, to be far greater than his own, and still have a 
happy faith that the nature of things works silently on 
behalf of the studies which he loves, and that, while we 
shall all have to acquaint ourselves with the great re- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



29 



suits reached by modern science, and to give ourselves 
as much training in its disciplines as we can conveniently 
carry, yet the majority of men will always require humane 
letters, and so much the more as they have the more and 
the greater results of science to relate to the need in 
man for conduct, and to the need in him for beauty. . . . 
The instinct for beauty is set in human nature, as 
surely as the instinct for knowledge is set there, or the 
instinct for conduct. If the instinct for beauty is served 
by Greek literature as it is served by no other literature, 
we may trust to the instinct of self-preservation in hu- 
manity for keeping Greek as part of our culture. We 
may trust to it for even making this study more preva- 
lent than it is now. As I said of humane letters in gen- 
eral, Greek will come to be studied more rationally than at 
present ; but it will be increasingly studied as men in- 
creasingly feel the need in them for beauty, and how 
powerfully Greek art and Greek literature can serve this 
need. 

Matthew Arnold. 

SEVERE STUDY. 

An effective way to excite interest, and that of the 
right kind, in school, is not to remove difficulties, but to 
teach the pupils how to surmount them. A text-book 
so contrived as to make study mere play, and to dis- 
pense with thought and effort, is the worst text-book 
that can be made, and the surest to be, in the end, a 
dull one. The great source of literary enjoyment, which 
is the successful exercise of intellectual power, is, by 
such a mode of presenting a subject, cut off. Secure, 
therefore, severe study. Let the pupil see that you are 



30 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



aiming to secure it, and that the pleasure that you 
expect that they will receive is that of firmly and pa- 
tiently encountering and overcoming difficulty ; of pen- 
etrating, by steady and persevering effort, into regions 
from which the idle and the inefficient are debarred ; 
and that it is your province to lead them forward, and 
not to carry them. They will soon understand this and 
like it. 

Jacob Abbott. 



TWO ASPECTS OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 

The phrase " industrial education " may have, and has 
acquired, two entirely distinct meanings. As under- 
stood by one party, it means the kind of education that 
is intended to foster industrial skill and to fit the pupil, 
while at school, for the industrial pursuits of later life. 
. . . But there is a totally different sense in which the 
phrase " industrial education " may be understood ; not 
that education shall be made subservient to industrial 
success, but that the acquisition of industrial skill shall 
be a means for promoting the general education of the 
pupil ; that the education of the hand shall be a means 
of more completely and more efficaciously educating the 
brain. It is in the latter sense, in which labor is re- 
garded as a means of mental development, that indus- 
trial education is understood by the most enlightened of 
its advocates. They are well aware that to introduce a 
trade into the school is to degrade the school ; that to 
take away from the young the time that should be dedi- 
cated to the elements of general culture and devote it 
to training them in a special aptitude, however useful 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



31 



later on, is to impair the humanity of the children. 
They desire nothing of this sort, and they ask that a 
workshop be connected with every school, for no other 
reason than that a chemical laboratory is connected with 
every college. p^^^^ ^^^^^^ 

PUBLIC VERSUS PRIVATE EDUCATION. 

Experience seems to point out no one plan of edu- 
cation as decidedly the best ; it only says, I think, that 
public education is the best where it answers. But then 
the question is, Will it answer with one's own boy t and 
if it fails, is not the failure complete } It becomes a 
question of particulars : a very good private tutor would 
tempt me to try private education, or a very good public 
school, with connections amongst the boys at it, might 
induce me to enter upon public. Still there is much 
chance in the matter ; for a school may change its char- 
acter greatly, even with the same . master, by the preva- 
lence of a good or bad set of boys ; and this no caution 
can guard against. But I should advise anything rather 
than a private school of above thirty boys. Large pri- 
vate schools, I think, are the worst possible system; the 
choice lies between public schools and an education 
whose character may be strictly private and domestic. 

Thomas Arnold. 



Whoever wishes to study with success, must exercise 
himself in these three things : in getting clear views of 
a subject ; in fixing in his memory what he has under- 
stood ; and in producing something from his own 
resources. 

AgRICOLAo 



32 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



The informed man in the world may be said to be 
always surrounded by what is known and friendly to 
him, while the ignorant man is as one in a land of 
strangers and enemies. 



Neil Arnott. 



A SUCCESS. 

The negro has falsified the predictions of his enemies, 
and dispelled the fears of his friends. They said he 
would give himself to riot and plunder ; but he earned 
the gratitude of the South by his fidelity to the family 
and the plantation, while his master was fighting against 
his freedom. They said the freedman would not work, 
but he raised in one year nearly four million bales of 
cotton. They ridiculed '' Sambo " in uniform, but the 
steady lines at Petersburg and the charge at Fort Wag- 
ner attest his heroism. 

What grander enterprise could there be than to take 
up the cause of a race like this, — the pariahs of the 
peoples, — distrusting their old guides and suspecting 
their present leaders, and prepare for them with timely 
zeal, and by wise methods, an army of educators who 
shall give tone to their character, direction to their 
ideas, and by moulding the now plastic material, secure 
a well-laid foundation, upon which the workmen of the 
future shall build to the honor of the race and of the 
nation, and to the glory of God t 

S. C. Armstrong. 



NEWS-ROOMS AND LIBRARIES. 

If you wish to be living always in the present, if you 
wish to have the din of its contentions always in your 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



33 



ears, and the flush of its fleeting interests always on 
your brow, above all, if you wish to have your opinions 
ready-made for you, without the trouble, of inquiry, and 
without the discipline of thought, then, I say, come 
from your counting-house and spend the few hours of 
leisure which you may have in exhausting the columns 
of the daily press ; but if your ambition be a nobler 
one, if your aim be higher, you will find yourselves 
often passing from the door of the news-room into that 
of the library, — from the present to the past, from the 
living to the dead, — to commune with those thoughts 
which should have stood the test of time, and which 
have been raised to the shelves of the library by com- 
mon consent of all men, because they do not contain 
mere floating information, but instruction for all gen- 
erations and for all times. 

Duke of Argyll. 



POLISHED MARBLE. 

I CONSIDER a human soul without education like 
marble in a quarry, which shows none of its inherent 
beauties until the skill of the polisher fetches out the 
colors, makes the surface shine, and discovers every 
ornamental cloud, spot, and vein that runs throughout 
the body of it. Education, after the same manner, 
when it works upon a noble mind, draws out to view 
every latent virtue and perfection, which, without such 
helps, are never able to make their appearance. 

Joseph Addison. 

Always trust, therefore, for the overcoming of a 
difficulty, not to long-continued study after you have 
once got bewildered, but to repeated trials, at intervals. 

Francis Bacon. 



34 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

MUSIC AND THE GREEKS. 

As gymnastics was intended to harmonize the powers 
of the body, so music was to order and to regulate the 
soul. ... A Greek who could not distinguish between 
semi-tones, or even between quarter-tones, would have 
been thought as ignorant as a classical scholar who 
quoted Homer with a false quantity. Also, they were 
far more sensitive than laymen usually are among our- 
selves to the essential characteristics of different keys. 
We have abundant evidence that every Greek boy was 
carefully trained in the theory and practice of the musi- 
cal art, and that it was regarded by masters of all 
schools as of the first importance to intellect and mo- 
rality. Plato, Aristotle, and Aristophanes agree in this. 
Music was not only the gymnastic of the ear and the 
voice, but of the spirit, and the foundation of all the 
higher life. Its rhythm and harmony penetrated into 
the soul and worked powerfully upon it. In union with 
poetry it led the soul to virtue and inspired it with cour- 
age. It has been well said that if a Greek youth had 
by continuous practice become stronger than a bull, 
more truthful than the Godhead, and wiser than the 
most learned Egyptian priest, his fellow-citizens would 
shrug their shoulders at him with contempt if he did 
not possess what a series of music and gymnastics can 
alone give, — a sense of gracefulness and proportion. 

Oscar Browning. 



FICTION AND EDUCATION. 

The numerous works of genius that take the form of 
Fiction, together with poetry in the more narrow sense, 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



35 



are undoubtedly an education in themselves. The force, 
elegance, and affluence of diction in general, the refine- 
ments and delicacies of conversational style in particu- 
lar, the portraying of character, and the depicting of 
scenery and life, the wise maxims wittily expressed, 
not to mention the inspiriting ideals, cannot go for 
nothing on the mind of the reader. They are effica- 
cious, however, just in proportion to previous culture; 
with a vast majority of fiction-readers the effect is 
barely to be traced ; these in their haste extract only 
the plot, sentiment, and passion, and let all the rest 
escape them. To gain the full impression of a work of 
the highest genius demands slow perusal, and a con- 
siderable pause before entering on any other. 

Alexander Bain. 



CHAIRS OF DIDACTICS. 

The establishment in the great institutions of Amer- 
ica and Europe of a chair for the professional education 
of teachers, marks a new departure in education. Col- 
leges and universities are conservative and exclusive. 
The professors are absorbed in their subjects, to the 
exclusion of methods. Thus it results that, as to meth- 
ods, our public schools are far in advance of our col- 
leges. In this case the reform must come from within. 
The maintenance of a chair of didactics is destined to 
revolutionize college methods. Such students as elect 
teaching will go out trained for their work, and prepared 
to fill the best positions. While normal departments 
have necessarily and always proved failures, the plan 
now pursued in the universities of Michigan, Iowa, 



-i^^ EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. ■ 

Missouri, and other states promises to be eminently 
successful. Teaching is made to rank with theology, 
law, and medicine. College graduates should no more 
undertake to teach without special preparation, than to 
practise law or medicine without special preparation. 
Teaching is an art to be learned. The recognition of 
these facts by our higher institutions marks an immense 
advance. 

J. Baldwin. 

FOR TWO WORLDS. 

In some allotment of the wide domain of education, 
in its large and comprehensive sense, embracing the 
culture of the whole being, and of every human being 
for two worlds, we can find objects and room enough for 
any sacrifice of time, money, and labor we may have 
to bestow in its behalf. Ever since the Great Teacher 
condescended to dwell among men, the progress of this 
cause has been upward and onward, and its final triumph 
has been longed for and prayed for, and believed in by 
every lover of his race. And although there is much 
that is dark and despairing in the past and present con- 
dition of society, yet when we study the nature of 
education, and the necessity and capabilities of improve- 
ment all around us, with the sure word of prophecy in 
our hands, and with the evidence of what has already 
been accomplished, the future rises bright and glorious 
before us, and on its forehead is the morning star, the 
herald of a better day than has yet dawned upon our 
world. In this sublime possibility, nay, in the sure 
word of God, let us in our hours of doubt and despon- 
dency, reassure our hope, strengthen our faith, and con- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 37 

firm the unconquerable will. The cause of education 
cannot fail, unless all the laws which have heretofore 
governed the progress of society shall cease to operate, 
and Christianity shall prove to be a fable, and hberty a 
dream. 

Henry Barnard. 



PROPER TEXT-BOOKS. 

Good books are an essential aid to good teaching. 
The proper kind of books for class exercises are those 
which contain the objects of study without the author's 
explanation of the thoughts ; such as books of carefully 
selected sentences, and carefully written narratives and 
descriptions, to be used with the objects in teaching 
beginners to read ; carefully selected and carefully writ- 
ten books to be used in teaching how to read an author ; 
books of problems to be solved, of sentences to be 
translated and analyzed, carefully selected and graded ; 
books of topics to direct the learner in his study of 
objects and in his experiments ; books containing his- 
torical documents and records for the study of the past ; 
and choice books on the various subjects of study, in 
which the best thoughts of the writer have been crys- 
tallized, showing what others have observed, imagined, 
thought, and done, which are to be read for the thoughts 
of the writer. 

Albert G. Boyden. 



It is only by infusing great principles into the com- 
mon mind that revolutions in human society are brought 
about. 

George Bancroft. 



38 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



SLOWLY RIPENED FRUIT. 



Where a permanent reform appears to have been 
instantaneously effected, it will be found that the happy 
result was but the sudden plucking of fruit which had 
slowly ripened. Successful revolutions proceed like all 
other formative processes from inward germs. The in- 
stitutions of a people are always the reflection of its 
heart and its intelligence ; and in proportion as these 
are purified and enlightened, must its public life mani- 
fest the dominion of universal reason. The subtle and 
irresistible movement of mind, silently but thoroughly 
correcting opinion and changing society, brings liberty 
both to the soul and to the world. All the despotisms 
on earth cannot stay its coming. Every fallacy that 
man discards is an emancipation ; every superstition 
that is thrown by is a redeeming from captivity. 

George Bancroft. 



OF PHILOSOPHY. 



If philosophy does nothing more for the student than 
to teach him to face the profound questions of life with 
composure, patience, and respect, believing that there 
is an infinite choice between conclusions, that all inquiry 
tends to the light, and that there is a safe path toward 
that light, it has given an intellectual and moral footing 
far beyond either dogmatic belief or despairing unbelief. 
At all events, he will escape mistaking flat and superfi- 
cial statements for complete and final truths. It is 
worth as much to us to be brought face to face with 
things we cannot measure, but must in some way meet, 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



39 



as to be taught the simplest and clearest facts in knowl- 
edge. Conventional minds may run the circuit of life 
under conventional morality, regarded as a sort of super- 
ficial deposit in race development ; yet in the progress 
of centuries this conventional morality will show itself 
amenable to the silent explorations of philosophy, and 
to those patient minds that are busy therein. 

John Bascom. 



KNOWLEDGE FOR PAINS. 

The knowledge of languages, sciences, histories, etc., 
is not innate to us ; it does not of itself spring in our 
minds ; it is not any ways incident by chance, or in- 
fused by grace (except rarely by miracle) ; common ob- 
servation doth not produce it ; it cannot be purchased 
at any rate, except by that for which, it was said of old, 
the gods sell all things, that is, for pains ; without which 
the best wit and the greatest capacity may not render a 
man learned, as the best soil will not yield good fruit 
or grain if they be not planted nor sown therein. 

Isaac Barrow. 



INDIGESTIBLE KNOWLEDGE. 

It is not worth while to discuss whether a method 
ought to be easy or hard. But we should even go on 
to say that it is the duty of a teacher not to rest as long 
as any difficulty exists which by any change of method 
can be removed. Involuntary learning is of as little use 
to the mind as involuntary exercise to the body. 

Now it is certain that a large proportion of boys dis- 
like the work which they have to do. Some like it; 



40 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



some are indifferent ; a great many simply hate it. We 
maintain that an educator of boys has no business to be 
satisfied as long as this is the case. A very few may 
dislike all intellectual labor, just as a very few men dis- 
like it ; but these cases are as rare with boys as with 
men. The great mass of human beings, whether young 
or old, have appetites for mental food of some kind, and 
the reason that so many turn away from it is, that what 
is given them is not what they can digest. There is a 
sort of incongruity, which falls little short of injustice, 
in punishing a boy for being idle, when we know that 
the work which the system of his school exacts is as 
cramping and distorting to his mind as an ill-fitting 
boot to the foot. No one would claim indeed that every 
pupil shall have his tastes suited with minute accuracy ; 
and the energy of a boy, if he is in good health, and 
otherwise happy, will carry him through rriinor difficul- 
ties. But no young boy since the world began has liked 
a Latin syntax, or a "formation of tenses," or felt any- 
thing in them for his mind to fasten upon and care for. 
Consider the case of a stupid boy, or an unclassical boy, 
at school, and the load of repulsive labor which we lay 
upon him. For many hours every day we expect him 
to devote himself, without hope of distinction or reward, 
to a subject which he dislikes and fears. He has no in- 
terest in it ; he has no expectation of being the better for 
it ; he never does well ; he rarely escapes doing ill. He 
is sometimes treated with strictness for faults to which 
the successful among his neighbors have no temptation ; 
and, when he is not visited with punishment, he at least 
is often regarded with contempt. He may be full of 
lively sympathies, eager after things that interest him. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 4 1 

willing even to sacrifice something for the sake of be- 
coming wiser ; but all that he gets in the way of intel- 
lectual education is a closer familiarity with a jargon, 
the existence of which in the world seems to him to con- 
trovert the Argument from Design, and the chance 
scraps of historical and literary knowledge which fall 
from the lips of his routine-bound master. If only it 
could be regarded as an established truth that the office 
of a teacher is, more than anything else, to educate his 
pupils ; to cause their minds to grow and work, rather 
than simply to induce them to receive ; to look to labor 
rather than to weigh specific results ; to make sure 
that at the end of a school-half that each one of those 
entrusted to him has had something to interest him, 
quicken him, cause him to believe in knowledge, rather 
than simply to repeat certain pages of a book without a 
mistake, — then we might begin to fancy the golden 
time was near at hand, when boys will come up to their 
lessons, as they surely ought, with as little hesitation 
and repugnance as that with which a man sits down to 
his work. 

E. E. BowEN. 



An education in submission is as essential a prepara- 
3n for going out into 
sound bodily regimen. 



tion for going out into the world, as an education in a 



Alexander Bain. 



THE KINDERGARTEN. 



The movement plays and exercises of the child-gar- 
den supply this demand for the education of free activity 
of the body, because they gratify the instinct of move- 



42 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



ment by a rythmical direction of it. In antiquity, long 
prior to Greek civilization, men practised games that 
developed and improved the body, probably without 
comprehending their full import. We find them at the 
present day among most savages. The sportive con- 
tests of antiquity, certainly those of the Greeks ; the 
tournaments of the Middle Ages ; above all, the modern 
gymnasium, has given to this primitive instinct of motion 
a particular scope ; and it has become, among practical 
people, a reflective act, having aim and object beyond 
mere bodily development. Doubtless the first condition 
of all activity, all labor, and production is the education 
of the limbs and the organs, which are the instruments of 
the mind. The shortcoming and failure of this educa- 
tion is proved by the feeble, unformed, and crippled 
bodies which are found so frequently among us, insuffi- 
cient instruments for work. Masses of men have 
received no physical education, or been perverted by 
that which they have received. An immense amount 
of force is lost to society by this failure of bodies at 
once strong and healthy, handsome and dexterous. 

Who will say then, that the movement plays of the 
child-garden are not a serious part of the education of 
the human being } 



Baroness Marenholtz Bulow. 



CHILDREN AND NATURE. 



You should attend to nature in your children far more 
than to art. The elegant manners and usages of the 
world are for the most part unnatural. These come of 
themselves in later years. Treat children like children, 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



43 



that they may remain the longer uncorrupted. A boy 
whose acutest faculties are his senses, and who has no 
perception of anything abstract, must first of all be 
made acquainted with the world as it presents itself to 
the senses. Let this be shown him in nature itself, or 
where this is impossible, in faithful drawings or models. 
Thereby can he, even in play, learn how the various 
objects are to be named. Comenius alone has pointed 
the right road in this matter. By all means reduce the 
wretched exercises of the memory. 

J. B. Basedow. 



The true victories, the only ones which we need 
never lament, are those won over the dominion of igno- 
rance. 

The employment most honorable, and most profitable 
to the people, is to labor for the diffusion and extension 
of the ideas of men. 

Napoleon Bonaparte. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 

If the extent and necessity of actual use be taken as 
a measure of the importance of any study, we must 
agree that the study of the English language and litera- 
ture easily ranks first in all educational work. Expres- 
sion, both oral and written, forms a large part of the 
daily experience of every human being. If it be urged 
that it will take care of itself from imitation of others, 
it may be answered that such imitation is one of the 
very things that most hinder the use of good language 
in the community, and that the same reasoning would 



44 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



apply to most of the work done in our schools. I claim 
that from the primary school to the close of the college 
course, the study of the English language and its litera- 
ture demands at least as much time and attention as 
that of any other subject or any other language what- 
ever. 

Eugene Bouton. 



THE DIGNITY OF HISTORY. 

It is because God is visible in History that its office 
is the noblest except that of the poet. The poet is at 
once the interpreter and the favorite of Heaven. He 
catches the first beam of light that flows from its uncre- 
ated source. He repeats the message of the Infinite, 
without always being able to analyze it, and often with- 
out knowing how he received it, or why he was selected 
for its utterance. To him, and to him alone, history 
yields in dignity ; for she not only watches the great 
encounters of life, but recalls what has vanished, and 
partaking of a bliss like that of creating, restores it to 
animated being. The mineralogist takes special delight 
in contemplating the process of crystallization, as though 
he had caught nature at her work as a geometrician ; 
giving herself up to be gazed at without concealment, 
such as she appears in the very moment of exertion. 
But history, as she reclines in the lap of eternity, sees 
the mind of humanity itself engaged in formative 
efforts, constructing sciences, promulgating laws, organ- 
izing commonwealths, and displaying its energies in the 
visible movement of its intelligence. Of all pursuits 
that require analysis, history, therefore, stands first. It 
is equal to philosophy ; for as certainly as the actual 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



45 



bodies forth the ideal, so certainly does history contain 
philosophy. It is grander than the natural sciences ; for 
its study is man, the last work of creation, and the most 
perfect in its relations with the Infinite. 



George Bancroft, 



SINGLE-STRINGED METHODS. 
As the man who attempts to run upon one leg has 
poor speed and quick exhaustion, so do all the single- 
stringed methods of education produce exhaustion, 
fatigue, and failure. But when the soul is uplifted and 
inspired by the love of the living teacher and the ravish- 
ing power of song, and when these exalted sentiments 
are consolidated in our bone and muscle by industrial 
action at the time, we develop a noble and enduring 
manhood for time and eternity. It is the only manhood 
on which a republican government can stand, and this 
morally industrial education is the only possible measure 
which can relieve us from the dangerous classes of crimi- 
nals, from the threatening army of tramps, and from 
the convulsions, mobs, and anarchy which are coming 
upon us, when millions of unskilled and poorly educated 
workmen living near the precipice of famine are liable 
to be tumbled over its edge by any sudden tilting of the 
balance of trade, or the fluctuations of markets, even if 
the curse of monopoly and speculation were removed. 

J. R. Buchanan. 

OF LEARNING. 

It were too long to go over the particular remedies 
which learning doth minister to all the diseases of the 
mind, sometimes purging the ill-humors, sometimes 



46 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

opening the obstructions, sometimes helping the di- 
gestion, sometimes increasing appetite, sometimes heal- 
ing the wounds and exulcerations thereof, and the like ; 
and therefore I will conclude with the chief reason of 
all, which is, that it disposeth the constitution of the 
mind not to be fixed or settled in the defects, thereof, 
but still to be capable and susceptible of reformation. 
For the unlearned man knows not what it is to descend 
into himself, or to call himself to account ; nor the 
pleasure of that most pleasant life, which consists in our 
daily feeling ourselves to become better. The good 
parts he hath he will learn to show to the full, and use 
them dexterously, but not much to increase them ; the 
faults he hath, he will learn how to hide and color them, 
but not much to amend them ; like an ill mower, that 
mows on still and never whets his scythe. Whereas, 
with the learned man it fares otherwise, that he doth 
ever intermix the correction and amendment of his mind 
with the use and employment thereof. ^^^^^^^ b^^^^^ 



In thine own circumference, as in that of the earth, 
let the rational horizon be larger than the sensible, and 
the circle of reason than of sense ; let the divine part be 
upward, and the region of beast below ; otherwise it is 
but to live invertedly, and with thy head unto the heels 
of thy antipodes. s^^ ^^^^^^ g^^^,^^_ 

DEVELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUALITY. 

The teacher is to develop individuality, not to absorb 
it. She should teach pupils to do, not what she wills, 
because she wills it, but what is right, because it is 



EDUCATIONAL MOSA/CS. 



47 



right. The moment Miss Duzenberry leaves her room, 
the pupils are in an uproar, showing by their extrava- 
gant misbehavior how great was the will-pressure upon 
them, and how lamentable a reaction is sure to follow 
when the pressure is removed. Besides, think what a 
strain it puts upon these little minds and bodies. Our 
whole system of primary instruction is barbarous. But 
when to the crowded seats, bad ventilation, infectious 
atmosphere, long hours, and unnatural discipHne, you add 
a constant nervous excitement, you have every requisite 
for fitting children for mad-houses or for coffins. 

C. W. Bardeen. 



SELF, NOT ANCESTORS. 

Feel something of thyself in the noble acts of thy 
ancestors, and find in thy own genius that of thy prede- 
cessor. Rest not under the expired merits of others ; 
shine by those of thine own. Flame not like the cen- 
tral fire, which enlighteneth no eyes, which no man 
seeth, and most men think there is no such thing to be 
seen. Add one ray unto the common lustre ; add not 
only to the number, but the note, of thy generation ; 
and prove not a cloud, but an asterisk, in thy region. 

Sir Thomas Browne. 



In truth, though a man be neither mechanic or peas- 
ant, but only one having a pot to boil, he is sure to learn 
from science lessons which will enable him to cook his 
morsel better, save his fuel, and both vary his dish and 
improve it. 

Lord Brougham. 



48 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



IDEAL SCHOOL OFFICERS. 



We cannot expect that a race of educational experts 
will suddenly appear to manage the public interests of 
the school, any more than we can expect a race of 
statesmen to grow up from the seed of dragon's teeth 
sown in political fields for the last quarter of a century. 
We can ask that the best men of the community, its 
wise men, its conservative men, its learned men, shall 
stand at the head of educational concerns. School offi- 
cers should be broad in view, liberal in opinion, possessed 
of good common sense, and know the difference between 
a good school and a poor one, between cheapness and 
fitness, between a wise economy and disastrous ruin. 
Such men need not necessarily know Latin or Greek, 
may have never seen the inner walls of a college, or have 
borne the honorable titles of Esquire, Reverend, or Hon- 
orable. 



Thomas W. Bicknell. 



DWARFED FACULTIES. 

A LARGE portion of my own life has been devoted to 
the teaching of physics. During all this time it has 
been manifest to me that my classes have come to this 
part of their course totally unpractised how to observe. 
And it has seemed to me that their perceptive faculties 
have been actually dwarfed by the forced inaction to 
which they have been constrained during the period 
most favorable to their cultivation. Thus it has hap- 
pened that the brief time which can only be given to 
these subjects in the college course has been exhausted 
in the attempt to convey such elementary notions as 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 49 

should have been familiar long before. And the same 
observation has been made to me by other gentlemen, 
who are among the most skilled instructors in science 
that I have ever known. If, then, I am asked if I would 
displace these subjects from the position they occupy in 
the course of collegiate instruction, I would answer, by 
no means. What I would desire would be to secure 
such an early culture, and such an acquaintance with 
the elements of science, that it might be permitted us 
to give, at this more advanced period, such larger views 
and such profounder applications of the principles of 
these sciences, that the student might feel in the end 
that he had acquired some mastery over them, and 
might be qualified to prosecute inquiry independently 
and profitably after he had mastered them. 

F. A. P. Barnard. 



ALL COMPLETE. 



When a man is developed up to his true nature, the 
reason, every part of it, must be brought to its full ; the 
moral sentiments, each of them, must be brought to 
their full ; the social faculties must be brought to their 
full ; every part of the mind must be brought to its full ; 
and each must learn its role. 

H. W. Beecher. 



HOW I WAS EDUCATED. 



I HAVE thus briefly stated all that occurs to me as 
likely to be of use to others, in regard to the process of 
my education. As I look back upon the history, in 
addition to the suggestions that might naturally occur, 



so 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 



two or three impressions remain profoundly fixed in my 
mind. One is, that with whatever opportunities, all 
higher education is essentially self-education. Teachers 
do not make the scholar. The impulse comes chiefly 
from within ; and the student becomes the scholar when 
he ceases to confine himself to prescribed tasks or pre- 
vious limits, and spontaneously reaches' out beyond. 
Another strong impression made upon me is, that the 
best preliminary preparation for even the studies of a 
specialist is a liberal education. Such an education con- 
nects him with the wide circle of thought and knowl- 
edge, and saves him from narrowness and hobbies. The 
man who can do one thing best is usually a man who 
could have done other things well. It has also been my 
observation that such a liberal education as will fit the 
man in due time to grapple most effectually with any 
specialty, consists more in training than in acquisition. 
The man that is thoroughly master of his own powers 
will master any sphere or theme to which he is called. 

S. C. Bartlett. 



Example yields the most compendious instruction, 
together with the most efficacious incitement to action. 

Isaac Barrow. 



TEACHING, A FINE ART. 

I HAVE done my work inspired with the idea that 
teaching is a beautiful art and a noble vocation. To 
me the teacher has seemed to be an artist shaping the 
minds of his pupils into higher forms, and through them 
moulding the generation in which they live. The true 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



51 



teacher has seemed to be painting pictures on the canvas 
of mind that shall last through the generations, and fade 
not in eternity. My own work was largely inspired by 
the spirit of the sentiment so felicitously phrased by an 
English writer, " that divine and beautiful thing called 
teaching." 



Edward Brooks. 



It is the man who takes in who can give out. The 
man who does not do the one soon takes to spinning 
his own fancies out of his interior, like a spider, and he 
snares himself at last, as well as his victims. 



Dr. John Brown. 



INSPIRE A LOVE OF KNOWLEDGE. 

This is indeed something worth being enthusiastic 
for. To convince boys that intellectual growth is 
noble, and intellectual labor happy, that they are travel- 
ling on no purposeless errand, mounting higher every 
step of the way, and may as truly enjoy the toil that 
lifts them above their former selves, as they enjoy a 
race or a climb ; to help the culture of their minds by 
every faculty of moral force, of physical vigor, of mem- 
ory, of fancy, of humor, of pathos, of banter, that we 
have ourselves, and lead them to trust in knowledge, to 
hope for it, to cherish it ; this, succeed as it may here 
and fail there, quickened as it may be by health and 
sympathy, or deadened by fatigue or disappointment, is 
a work which has in it most of the elements which life 
needs to give it zest. It is not to be done by putting 
books before boys, and hearing them so much at a time ; 



52 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



or by offering prizes and punishments ; or by assuring 
them that every EngUsh gentleman knows Horace. It 
is by making it certain to the understanding of every 
one that we think the knowledge worth having our- 
selves, and mean in every possible way, by versatile oral 
teaching, by patient guidance, by tone and manner and 
look, by anger and pity, by determination even to amuse, 
by frank allowance for dulness and even for indolence, 
to help them to attain a little of what gives us such 
pleasure. A man or an older pupil can find this help 
in books ; a young boy needs it from the words and 
gestures of a teacher. There is no fear of loss of dig- 
nity ; the work of teaching will be respected when the 
things that are taught begin to deserve respect. 

Above all, the work must be easy. , Few boys are 
ever losers from finding their task too simple, for they 
can always aspire to learning what is harder ; many 
have had their school career ruined from being set to 
attack what was too hard. It may be said, perhaps, 
that what was easy enough for past generations ought 
to be easy enough for the present. Those who urge 
this view, may simply be asked whether they are satis- 
fied with the working of the classical education that 
exists. Allowing that the very best scholars can assimi- 
late anything whatever, and that with the very worst it 
is next to useless to try at all, is it true to say that the 
average boys have a fair chance of making the most of 
their powers ? If not, there are two resources before 
the teacher. He can, as is elsewhere pointed out, vary 
and enlarge the basis of education ; he can also teach 
classics so as to include more that is of rational interest, 
and less that is of pedantic routine. 



E. E. BowEN. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 



53 



O'er wayward children wouldst thou hold firm rule, 

And sun thee in the light of happy faces ; 

Love, Hope, and Patience, — these must be the graces. 

And in thine own heart let them first keep school ! 

For, as old Atlas on his broad neck places 

Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it, so 

Do these upbear the little world below 

Of education — Patience, Hope, and Love ! 

Methinks I see them grouped in seemly show, — 

The straitened arms upraised, — the palms aslope, — 

And robes that touching, as adown they flow. 

Distinctly blend, like snow embossed in snov/. 

O part them never ! if Hope prostrate lie. 

Love, too, will sink and die. 
But Love is subtle ; and will proof derive, 
From her own life, that Hope is still alive, 
And bending o'er, with soul-transfusing eyes. 
And the soft murmurs of the mother dove, 
Woos back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies. 
Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to 

Love ! 
Yet haply there will come a weary day. 
When, overtasked, at length. 
Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way, 
Then, with a statue's smile, a statue's strength. 
Stands the mute sister, Patience, — nothing loath ; 
And, both supporting, does the work of both. 

Samuel T. Coleridge. 



54 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



Observe with the utmost attention all the opera- 
tions of your own mind, the' nature of your passions, 
and the various motives that determine your will, and 
you may, in a great degree, know all mankind. 



Lord Chesterfield. 



MORAL LESSONS INCIDENTALLY. 

To the schoolroom the teacher should bring the per- 
sonal influence, the inspiration, so to speak, of a charac- 
ter in which the gentle as well as the heroic virtues are 
conspicuous. And here every opportunity should be 
embraced to impress, by example, by precept, by illus- 
tration, upon the minds of the scholars the paramount 
importance of the cultivation of the moral faculties 
co-equal with the intellectual. I would not have this 
sentiment acquired by committing to memory printed 
answers to printed questions, neither would I encourage 
a great amount of preaching by the teacher ; but I would 
have a constant sifting-in, a mingling of the moral with 
the mental food, as salt is mingled with the physical. 

Scarcely a lesson need occur from which some moral 
instruction may not be drawn. For example : in the 
study of geography and history, the benefits of peace, 
of brotherhood, and of unselfish international exchange ; 
in zoology, kindness to animals ; in natural philosophy 
and chemistry, the wonderful harmony and fitness of 
things, one toward another ; in mathematics, the exact- 
ness of proper methods in producing certain desirable 
results, — may all be made by skilful, conscientious 
handling, to lead to a perception of the excellence of 
right-doing in the conduct of life. 

Mrs. Elizabeth B. Chace. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 55 

APPLICATION. 

For stern, close thought, the mind must be schooled 
by habits of close application, and this is more rare than 
one would imagine ; for, notwithstanding what is called 
application in our public schools, the mind is so little 
employed in it, that few men ever know how to isolate 
themselves from present objects enough to think really, 
and the habit is easily lost. 

Carolink F. Cornwallis. 



PRODIGIES. 



I GRANT that the education which cultivates only the 
memory may make prodigies, and that it has done so ; 
but these prodigies last only during the time of infancy. 
. . . He who knows only by heart, knows nothing. . . . 
He who has not learned to reflect has not been in- 
structed, or, what is still worse, has been poorly in- 
structed. 

CONDILLAC. 



THINGS, NOT THEIR SHADOWS. 

In the place of dead books, why should we not open 
the living book of nature ? . . . To instruct the young 
is not to beat into them by repetition a mass of words, 
phrases, sentences, and opinions gathered out of authors ; 
but it is to open their understanding through things. . . . 
The foundation of all knowledge consists in correctly 
representing sensible objects to our senses, so that they 
can be comprehended with facility. I hold that this is 
the basis of all our other activities, since we could neither 
act nor speak wisely unless we adequately comprehended 



56 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

what we were to do and say. Now it is certain that 
there is nothing in the understanding that was not first 
in the senses, and, consequently, it is to lay the founda- 
tion of all wisdom, of all eloquence, and of all good and 
prudent conduct, carefully to train the senses to note 
with accuracy the differences between natural objects; 
and as this point, important as it is, is ordinarily neg- 
lected in the schools of to-day, and as objects are pro- 
posed to scholars that they do not understand because 
they have not been properly represented to their senses 
or to their imagination, it is for this reason, on the one 
hand, that the toil of teaching, and on the other, that 
the pain of learning, have become so burdensome and 
so unfruitful. . . . We must offer to the young, not the 
shadows of things, but the things themselves, which 
impress the senses and the imagination. Instruction 
should commence with a real observation of things, and 
not with a verbal description of them. 

John Amos Comenius. 



INTELLECTUAL FORCE. 

The elevation of man, is to be sought, or rather con- 
sists, first in force of thought exerted for the acquisition 
of truth ; thought is the fundamental distinction of 
mind, and the great work of life. All that a man does 
outwardly is but the expression and completion of his 
inward thought. To work effectually, he must think 
clearly ; to act nobly, he must think nobly. Intellect- 
ual force is a principal element of the soul's life, and 
should be proposed by every man as the principal end 
of his being. 

W. E. Channing. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 57 



THEORY AND PRACTICE. 



I, FOR one, esteem practice. I trace all real knowl- 
edge to experience. I care for no theories, no systems, 
no generalizations, which do not spring from life and 
return to it again. I feel perhaps undue contempt for 
the vague abstractions we often listen to, idle figments 
of an idle brain, speculations with no basis of sharp 
observation beneath them. Yet we are in danger of 
going too far in this direction, and of undervaluing 
theory in its proper limits. People often eulogize Prac- 
tice when they only mean Routine, boasting themselves 
as practical teachers, intending thereby that they only 
do what always has been done, and do not mean to do 
any better to-morrow than they did yesterday. Practice 
and theory must go together. Theory, without practice 
to test it, to verify it, to correct it, is idle speculation ; 
but practice, without theory to animate it, is mere 
mechanism. In every art and business theory is the soul 
and practice the body. The soul without a body in 
which to dwell is indeed only a ghost, but the body 
without a soul is only a corpse. I pass a sign often on 
which the artisan has painted "John Smith " (or what- 
ever the name may be), "Practical Plumber." I should 
not wish to employ him. When the water-works in my 
house get out of order, I want a theoretical plumber as 
well as one who is practical. I want a man who under- 
stands the theory of hydrostatic pressure ; who knows 
the laws giving resisting qualities to lead, iron, zinc, and 
copper, — who can so arrange and plan beforehand the 
order of pipes that he shall accomplish the results aimed 
at with the smallest amount of piping, the least expos- 



,58 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

ure to frost, the least danger of leakage or breakage; 
and this, a merely practical man, a man of routine, can- 
not do. The merest artisan needs to theorize, i.e., to 
think, — to think beforehand, to foresee ; and that must 
be done by the aid of general principles, by the knowledge 
of laws. An intelligent man, a man of general culture, 
whose mind has been quickened with ideas, will often 
be able to show a mechanic how to do his own work. 
When we are young, we have a superstitious faith in 
the knowledge each man is supposed to have of his own 
business. We outgrow this after a while. If you wish 
anything done about your house, send for a mechanic ; 
but overlook him, do not leave him to himself. You 
will presently find that you can suggest something to 
him in his own work, which he never thought of. All 
success depends on practice, but all improvement on 
theory. Let neither despise the other. 

James Freeman Clarke. 



The great result of schooling is a mind with just 
vision to discern, with free force to do ; the grand 
schoolmaster is Practice. 

Thomas Carlyle. 



MORAL TEACHINGS OF HISTORY. 

But history should be studied with a moral purpose 
as well as an intellectual. No one who is not more or 
less acquainted with his country can feel an enlightened 
interest in its fame and its privileges, can judge of those 
discussions of vital moment which are unceasingly on 
the lips of- a free people, or can understand its current 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



59 



literature. And he is excluded from all those pleasant 
associations which almost every spot of its soil suggests 
to him who has traced its growth from infancy to man- 
hood. But beyond contributing in an indirect way to 
raise the whole tone and temper of those who read it, 
history stands forth with claims to be regarded as a 
great moral teacher. It exhibits the punishment of 
crime, it may be after temporary success ; and, where 
crime seems to prosper continuously, the miseries which 
follow in its train. It draws lessons of personal im- 
provement from the characters who appear upon its 
stage, whether good or bad ; from the devotion of the 
patriot, the fortitude of the martyr, the integrity of the 
honorable, and the charity of the pious, not less than 
from the craft and falsehood of the intriguer, the cor- 
ruptness of the unjust, and the unscrupulousness of the 
selfish. The reader should have his own character 
heightened by the attraction of the virtuous and by the 
repulsion of the vicious. Thus it is that this subject 
occupies no mean place amongst the instruments for 
forming the moral judgment of youth. 

James Currie. 



DILIGENCE. 



There is an advice I must give you — the summary 
of all advices, and doubtless you have heard it a thou- 
sand times ; but you must hear it once more, for it is 
most intensely true, whether you believe it or not. 
That above all things the interest of your whole life 
depends upon your being diligent and honest, now while 
it is called to-day, in this place, where you have come 



6o EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

to get your education ! Diligence ! that includes in it all 
virtues that a student can have ; I include in it all those 
qualities of conduct and attention that lead to the 
acquirement of real instruction in such a place. This 
is the seed-time of life — and as you sow, so will you 
reap ; this the fluid condition of your mind, and as it 
hardens into habits, so will it retain the consistency of 
rock and of iron to the end. By diligence I mean hon- 
esty, not only as to time, but as to your knowledge. 
Grant a thing as known only when it is clearly yours, 
and is transparent to you, so that you can survey it on 
all sides with intelligence. Don't flourish about with 
what you only know the outside of, and don't cram with 
undigested fragments for examinations. Be modest, be 
humble, be assiduous, and as early as you can find out 
what kind of work you individually can do in this 
universe, and qualify yourself for doing it. 

Thomas Carlyle. 



It is attention which fixes objects in the memory. 
There is no surer mark of a mean and meagre intellect in 
the world than inattention. All that is worth the trou- 
ble of doing at all, deserves to be done well, and nothing 
can be well done without attention. 

Lord Chesterfield. 



MARCUS AURELIUS. 



The wisest of the Roman emperors, the author of the 
book entitled To Myself, better known as Meditations, 
Marcus Aurelius, deserves mention in the history of 
pedagogy He is perhaps the most perfect representa- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 5 1 

tive of Stoic morality, which is itself the highest expres- 
sion of ancient morahty. He is the most finished type 
of what can be effected in the way of soul-culture by 
the influence of home training and the personal effort 
of the conscience. His teacher of rhetoric was the cele- 
brated Fronto, of whose character we may judge from 
this one characteristic : " I toiled hard yesterday/' he 
wrote to his pupil ; " I composed a few figures of 
speech, with which I am pleased." On the other 
hand, Marcus Aurelius found examples for imitation 
in his own family. ''My uncle," he says, reverently, 
" taught me patience. From my father I inherited mod- 
esty. To my mother I owe my feelings of piety." 
Notwithstanding the modesty that led him to attribute 
to others the whole of his moral worth, it is especially 
to himself, to a persistent effort of his own will, and 
to a ceaseless examination of his own conscience, that 
he is indebted for becoming the most virtuous of men, 
and the wisest and purest, next to Socrates, of the 
moralists of antiquity. His Meditations show us in 
action that self-education which in our time has sug- 
gested such beautiful reflections to Channing. 

Gabriel Compayre. 



EXAMINING BOARDS. 

It requires men of great and versatile experience to 
be able to ask such suggestive questions as can fully 
test the general knowledge and capabilities of a teacher. 
It is very easy to give simple puzzles and test a per- 
son's knowledge on particular points ; but examining 
boards have, or should have, a far more difficult duty 



62 EDUCATIOIVAL MOSAICS. 

to perform, and hence should be composed of profes- 
sional teachers only. Who would think of building 
a ship, and asking a doctor to examine it to see if it 
was seaworthy ? But you can build your schools, send 
your children there, and then get men who have not 
been in school in forty years, and know nothing of 
modern methods and regime, to go and examine the 
teachers, simply because some of these men once at- 
tended a college. The absurdity of this foolish system 
is only too evident. The examining board should con- 
sist of teachers of the highest ability and success. 

J. W. CORTHELL. 



THE COUNTRY'S REQUIREMENTS. 

Our country has not given us birth, or educated us 
under her law, as if she expected no succor from us ; or 
that, seeking to administer to our convenience only, 
she might afford a safe retreat for the indulgence of 
our ease, or a peaceful asylum for our indolence ; but 
that she might hold in pledge the various and most 
exalted powers of our mind, our genius, and our judg- 
ment for her own benefit, and that she might leave for 
our private use such portions only as might be spared 
for that purpose. Cicero. 

HOW I LEARNED ORATORY. 

I OWE my own success in life chiefly to one circum- 
stance, that, at the age of twenty-seven, I commenced, 
and continued for years, the process of daily reading 
and speaking upon the contents of some historical or 
scientific book. These off-hand efforts were made 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



63 



sometimes in a cornfield, at others in the forest, and 
not unfrequently in some distant barn, with the horse 
and ox for my auditors. It is to this early practice 
of the art of all arts that I am indebted for the primary 
and leading impulses that stimulated me onward and 
have shaped and moulded my whole subsequent destiny. 

Henry Clay. 

All knowledge which is not followed by action is un- 
profitable and imperfect, like a beginning without an 
end, or a foundation without a superstructure. 

Cicero. 



ESSENTIALS FIRST. 

The principle of dealing with essentials mainly should 
prevail in all the work of education. We have too much 
to do to spend time fooling over complicated arithmeti- 
cal puzzles which abound in some books — questions 
which no one should undertake to solve till well versed 
in algebra and geometry. At the proper stage of edu- 
cation, such puzzles, which are a discouragement to the 
young scholar, because he thinks them essential to the 
subject, will be solved in the natural progress of his 
work. They are an annoyance and discouragement 
simply because they are introduced before their time, 
— before the study of the principles on which their 
solution depends. paul a. chadbourne. 

OF BOOKS. 

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse 
with superior minds ; and these invaluable means of 
communication are in the reach of all. In the best 



64 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

books, great men talk to us, give us their most pre- 
cious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. God 
be thanked for books ! They are the voices of the dis- 
tant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual 
life of past ages. Books are the true levellers. They 
give to all who will faithfully use them the society, the 
spiritual presence of the best and greatest of our race. 
No matter how poor I am ; no matter though the pros- 
perous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwell- 
ing ; if the sacred writers will enter and take up their 
abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshold to 
sing to me of Paradise, and Shakespeare to open to me 
the worlds of imagination and the workings of the 
human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his prac- 
tical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual 
companionship ; and I may become a cultivated man 
though excluded from what is called the best society 
in the place where I live. 

W. E. Channing. 



It depends on what we read, after all manner of pro- 
fessors have done their best for us. The true univer- 
sity of these days is a collection of books. 



Thomas Carlyle. 



THE PROBLEM. 



To cause gross natures to pass from the life of the 
senses to the intellectual life ; to make study agreeable 
to the end that the higher pleasures of the spirit may 
struggle successfully against the appetites for material 
pleasures ; to put the book in the place of the wine 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



65 



bottle ; to substitute the library for the saloon ; in a 
word, to replace sensation by idea ! — such is the funda- 
mental problem of popular education. 



CONDORCET. 



GRECIAN PEDAGOGY. 

Upon that privileged soil of Greece, in that brilliant 
Athens abounding in artists, poets, historians, and phi- 
losophers, in that rude Sparta celebrated for its discipline 
and manly virtues, education was rather the spontaneous 
fruit of nature, the natural product of diverse manners, 
characters, and races, than the premeditated result of 
a reflective movement of the human will. Greece, how- 
ever, had its pedagogy, because it had its legislators and 
its philosophers, the first directing education in its 
practical details, the second making theoretical inquiries 
into the essential principles underlying the development 
of the human soul. In respect of education, as of every- 
thing else, the higher spiritual life of modern nations 
has been developed under the influence of Grecian an- 
tiquity. Gabriel Compayre. 

THE NEW CIVILIZATION. 

The new civilization, which moves on through the 
development of the forces of nature, recognizes the 
truth that life is more than meat, and the body more 
than raiment. In no other age, in no other country, 
has man, as an intellectual and moral being, been held 
at so high a value as at the present time and in this 
country. It is this recognition of the worth of human 
beings that arches all the future with radiant light. 



^^ EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. . 

Men are no longer mere food for powder, — the many- 
created to do the bidding of the few. The new civiliza- 
tion not only recognizes the right of every human being 
to make the most of himself, but regards it the duty of 
society to aid him. In no other country is there such 
recognition of this obligation as in this land of ours. 
Here the common school, the high school, the college, 
the university, the liberal arts, special instruction, pub- 
lic libraries free to rich and poor, are the institutions 
that give regal power and lease of life. 

Charles Carleton Coffin. 



VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE. 

What, under heaven, can* there be more worthy of 
our most strenuous attention, than knowledge ; what 
more worthy of our highest admiration 1 Is calmness 
or serenity of mind the object of our wishes t What 
so likely to secure it as the pursuit of that knowledge 
which enables us to enjoy life in the happiest manner.'* 
Or do we esteem above all things unsullied integrity and 
spotless virtue } Either the study and acquisition of 
wisdom point out the path, or there is none, to the at- 
tainment of these distinctions. Cicero. 



OBJECT-TEACHING. 

Objective instruction can most successfully open 
the portals of science and guide the early steps of those 
who enter therein. It will prepare pupils for learning 
readily from all sources, and lead them to seek books 
from a desire to know what others have discovered in 
nature. By it the elementary steps in knowledge can 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 6/ 

be taken most nearly as the child would learn the same 
subject from objects with only nature for its guide. It 
adapts the subject and the manner of instruction to the 
mental conditions of pupils in all their varying aspects. 
No text-book can successfully meet these different con- 
ditions ; only the living teacher can so present the 
matter of instruction as to harmonize in time and man- 
ner with their needs. 

In the various stages of school instruction, whatever 
may be the subject, let the teacher prepare the pupils 
for studying it by introducing it orally, and whenever 
necessary, illustrating its chief points so that these shall 
be clearly understood by them ; then assign the same 
subject as a lesson to be studied in the text-book, and 
afterwards recited by them and further explained by the 
teacher. By this means habits of giving more attention 
to facts and ideas, than to the mere forms of language, 
will be formed, and the student's progress in knowledge 
will be thorough, practical, and rapid. 

N. A. Calkins. 



In this impulse to construct and.destroy, there is but 
the effort of the little intelligence to succeed in making 
or building something for himself ; so that instead of 
opposing the child in this, he should be encouraged and 

gUiaea. John Amos Comenius. 

The large place assigned to music by Plato and Aris- 
totle, shows that the culture of the emotions was an 
important element in Greek education. Esthetic train- 
ing was not only an end in itself, but was regarded as 
the basis of moral and religious culture. ^^^^^^^ compavkk. 



68 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

SAVE US FROM ROUTINE. 

I AM averse to "cut and dry theories" as to the best 
possible ways of teaching. I would have each teacher 
observe and reflect for himself ; but by all means save 
us from routine. A teacher needs knowledge of human 
nature, and he needs freedom of action to avail himself, 
without reserve, of all the varied resources fitted to 
awaken attention and stimulate mental activity. . . . 
To a competent teacher the work never can be uninter- 
esting. Those who wish an easy life would act wisely 
did they turn in some other direction than the school- 
room. Those who are willing to give thought, and 
patience, and strenuous effort to the work of life will 
find in the schoolroom a most attractive sphere of use- 
fulness. Much is said of the routine of a teacher's life. 
It is a one-sided view which leads to the remark. In so 
far as the subjects to be taught are concerned, it is rou- 
tine, but in no other sense. There is, indeed, endless 
variety in school life. The unfolding of youthful minds, 
with the varying phases of curiosity and carelessness, 
erroneous apprehension, and quick recognition of what 
is taught, presents an unceasing source of attraction. 
The early attempts at self-government, with their comi- 
cal failures and more serious outbreaks, their flow of 
feeling, now playful, now serious, and again deepening 
into passion, make a teacher's life one of the most lively. 
If a dull feeling of sameness creep over our minds, there 
is something wrong with ourselves in our teaching. 
With the lofty end the teacher has in view, and the 
variety of nature presented in a considerable gathering 
of children, a teacher's work should never seem tame. 

Henry Calderwood. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



EXPERIENCE AND OBSERVATION. 



69 



The great sources of wisdom are experience and 
observation. To open and fix the eyes upon what 
passes without and within us is the most fruitful study. 
Books are useful chiefly as they help us to interpret what 
we see and experience. When they absorb men as they 
sometimes do, and turn them from the observation of 
nature and life, they generate a learned folly for which 
the plain sense of the illiterate could not be exchanged 
but at great loss. w. e. chaknino. 



ACTIVITY NECESSARY. 

Especially must the intelligence be nourished, even 
as the body is nourished. We must present to it knowl- 
edge, which is the wholesome aliment of spirit, opinions 
and errors being aliment that is poisonous. It is also 
necessary that the intelligence be active, for the thought 
remains imbecile as long as, passive rather than active, 
it moves at random. Condillac. 



DANGERS OF THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

The election by the student of his entire course of 
study according to preference or caprice, coupled with 
so much or so little attendance on instruction as may 
seem to him reasonable, encourages the impression that 
his opinion is valuable on all subjects ; that he is fully 
competent to deal with all subjects, certainly to estab- 
lish relative values. Accordingly, he attacks and settles 
in a few moments by some new and brilliant solution 
questions of college management on which old men have 



70 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



Studied with anxiety for a lifetime. He issues in his 
weekly or bi-weekly sheets the lucubrations of those few 
moments charged with, conceit, if not with rudeness. 
While a wise individualism is the proper end of all 
discipline, it will come as the result of discipline, and 
not as its origin. Individualism without discipline is 
the bane of our country. Honor to a constant con- 
trolling authofity — a subordination of personal caprices 
and whims, and even of rational desires to the best 
good of the organism — is the imperative need of this 
age, and should be a marked feature in the character of 
a liberally educated man. I do not say that there are 
not many cases in which it is wise and best for a young 
man to choose his instruction to a certain extent with 
reference to his life-work, but even in these cases, other 
and wiser men ought to select the best means for the 
end that he proposes for himself. Courses, not studies, 

should be elective. Frankun Carter 

We exhort you, then, not only not to neglect the study 
of letters, but to devote yourselves to them with all your 

power. ^^^ Charlemagne. 

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it ; 
and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do 

not know it ; this is knowledge. Confucius. 



THE STATESMAN'S CARE. 
While it may be said that the life of a state and the 
preservation of its liberties depend upon the courage of 
the people, it is equally true that a wise administration 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 7 1 

of its laws and the maintenance of order and happiness 
rest upon the virtue and inteUigence of its citizens. If 
this proposition is admitted, then it follows that the 
education of the people becomes one of the highest 
duties of the state, and no subject is more worthy the 
consideration of the enlightened statesman. 

N. H. R. Dawson. 



THE TEACHER^S OPPORTUNITY. 

Every schoolmaster and schoolmistress in the Union 
may reflect, however humble or secluded be his station, 
that he has the opportunity of raising his school to an. 
eminence. He may do his part towards elevating the 
standard of education, and sound a trumpet to the 
higher institutions to elevate theirs. He may reflect, 
as he enters the door of his schoolhouse, whether it be 
in the populous village or on the lonely prairie ; whether 
on the bleak hillside, or under the shade of the grove ; 
whether pitched on a mountain, or sprinkled by the 
surges of the ocean, that its naked walls may be deco- 
rated with simple ornaments, attractive to the eye, 
favorable to taste, and instructive to the mind ; the 
arrangements may be such as to secure healthful pos- 
tures and exercise, thorough instruction and necessary 
variety, well attempered light, and the purest air that 
heaven affords. It may be the abode of harmony, hap- 
piness, and improvement. The best of friendships may 
be formed there ; and the path which conducts to it, 
however stony or winding, may be associated in many a 
useful mind with recollections of childhood, and the 
loftiest conceptions of science, of man, and his Creator. 

Timothy Dwight. 



72 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



The price of retaining what we know is always to 
seek to know more. We preserve our learning and 
mental power only by increasing them. 



Henry Darling. 



DEGRADING THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

There is a tendency in modern times to separate the 
sesthetical and moral from other forms of culture in the 
public schools, for it is said that the State has no right 
to furnish the children of the State with any training 
'which does not have for its object the ability to live suc- 
cessfully their physical lives. They would limit the 
culture of the imagination and the taste to those fortu- 
nate ones who can secure it for themselves by private 
means ; and the training of the conscience they would 
leave to home influences and to the teachings of the 
church. Such sentiments have a tendency to degrade 
the public schools, and to divert them from pursuing 
the very ends they were established to attain. . . . 

Nothing but a thorough study and understanding of 
the philosophy of education will ever preserve our 
schools from that degradation which must come if the 
refinements and the Christianity of culture are banished 
from them. Our schools have no meaning except as 
they are considered to be institutions for the formation 
of character. The educators of the State and all the 
citizens should labor together to find a way by which 
the school authorities may all be provided with skilled 
agents to assist them in the management of our school 
affairs. 

J. W. Dickinson. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 73 

ORAL INSTRUCTION. 

The true object of oral instruction I conceive to be 
threefold, — training, knowledge, and expression. It is 
possible to make either factor too prominent. We may 
make sharp intellects, that possess little valuable knowl- 
edge or power of expression ; we may impart knowledge 
in such a way as to develop in our pupils little power 
either to think or to express ; or we may make fluent 
talkers and writers, characterized by weakness and igno- 
rance. Neither of these is the highest type of man. 
Perfection requires power, wisdom, and speech. It is 
not a sufficient recommendation, then, either of a sub- 
ject of study or a mode of treatment, that it disciplines 
the mind. It is not enough that it makes the pupil 
wise, or that it makes him fluent of speech. The true 
test of every course of instruction, and for every lesson 
in the course, — and this is emphatically true of oral 
instruction, which fashions the mental habits, — is this : 
does it result in that self-activity of the pupils that 
gives them additional power to act; does the subject- 
matter stand in such relation to human interests, and 
especially to the interests of these human beings, that 
the resulting knowledge will be of the highest practical 
value to them ; and are they the better prepared to put 
themselves in communication and sympathy with their 
fellow-men .'' Oral instruction that will not bear this 
test should not be allowed to waste the time of pupils. 

Larkin Dunton. 



It is certain that in the education which was given at 
Sparta, the prime purpose was to train Spartans. 



74 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

It is thus that in every state the purpose should be to 
enkindle the spirit of citizenship. 

DUCLOS. 



ART STUDY. 



We are often asked what is the best course of in- 
struction in art } Our only reply is, a thorough knowl- 
edge of the rules and principles, beginning at the 
foundation, combined with such practice as will not only 
give to the scholar skill of hand and accuracy of eye, 
but also make these rules his own. First, the rules of 
form must be mastered, then of light and shade, and 
then of color. Having mastered these first and funda- 
mental principles of art, the scholar is prepared to learn 
their application in composition and design, from the 
highest department of art to the lowest, for the same 
rules are essential to every branch from the highest 
ideal composition to the simplest design for the artisan. 
An experienced teacher will soon discover in what 
branch of art the scholar will most excel, and direct his 
studies with reference to the talent developed. Suc- 
cess with each one depends no less upon natural ability 
than upon right instruction. 

It is the same with the study of art as with that of 
mathematics. If the scholar is not well grounded in 
the first principles of arithmetic, and made familiar with 
numbers, he can make little or no progress in algebra 
or geometry ; and in the study of mathematics no prog- 
ress is expected unless the scholar goes on regularly 
from step to step. When the same importance is 
attached to method and accuracy in teaching the first 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 75 

principles of art, we shall have artists who will produce 
works of intrinsic excellence. Without it, they can 
never rise above mediocrity either as historical painters 
or designers. m. a. dwight. 

RECENT HISTORY. 

Not to carry history up to our times would, to-day, 
be a national crime ; we owe it to our heroes, whether 
they live or sleep in French earth. Not to progress to 
the present would make all study of the past almost 
useless. History is to give an ideally practical educa- 
tion for the present and for the future. The weapons 
of Achilles might be borrowed by any one from the 
past ; but without knowledge of the developments to 
the present, he would be fighting in the dark with them. 
Shall it be left to accident or to the care of one individ- 
ual to make up what is wanting.? Experience has 
taught us how many are able to do so. Why shall the 
rising generation learn everything, except the founda- 
tion on which it stands } Perhaps, because recent his- 
tory cannot be taught objectively enough. But will it 
be taught more objectively in the light of faction and a 
party press } If the teacher has disciplined his mind as 
in duty bound, objectively to represent the reality of 
past times, he, foremost among his fellow-citizens, will 
be qualified for the objective comprehension and repre- 
sentation of modern ideas. 

G. DiESTERWEG. 



DIFFICULT WORK NEEDED. 

Mental training is dependent, not only on a right 
method of activity, but on the degree of it. I am not 



76 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 

sure that serious mistakes are not now made in attempt- 
ing to make school-work entirely easy as well as absolute- 
ly delightful. It may not be wise to compel the pupil to 
grope in the dark for results that a small amount of 
well-directed labor would easily produce, nor to add that 
severity to his labor which will make it a disagreeable 
task for him to perform, but it must not be forgotten 
by those who are engaged in training the human mind, 
that an earnest and prolonged activity is the only price 
that will purchase a vigorous development. A con- 
sciousness of such activity, and of the good results asso- 
ciated with it, is the source of a higher joy than is expe- 
rienced in mere amusement. As the mind acquires 
strength only by an exertion of its own power, it must 
not be relieved from hard and independent labor by any 
attempt on the part of the teacher to take the burden 
of work upon himself. He must not attempt to think 
and speak for his pupils, nor to consider his work is 
skilfully done, when he has made easy, by explanations, 
whatever is assigned to be performed. 

J. W. Dickinson. 



CONTACT WITH PUPILS. 

The old Socratic method was that the teacher should 
instruct the pupil everywhere — in the forum, in the 
market-place, in the shop, and upon the street. I am 
quite sure that it would be well if this Socratic method 
was not regarded as obsolete, and if these impressions 
which are made from time to time in the recitation 
room, should be deepened by that personal contact 
which every true instructor may and ought to have with 
his pupils. It will be a grand thing for the colleges of 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



77 



this State if we can educate well, not simply a few men 
in every class, but if we can so order our instruction 
that the average standard of scholarship in all classes 
will be elevated ; if the poor scholar shall be taught by 
some stimulant to do better work and go out from our 
colleges a more complete and perfectly educated man. 

Henry Darling. 



A HABIT OF WORK. 

In order to give women the habit of work, they must 
be impressed as girls with the fact that their education 
is not finished at eighteen, and that their first ball-dress 
does not possess, any more than a bachelor's degree for 
young men, the power of giving the finishing touch to 
their attainments. 

DUPANLOUP. 



PRACTICAL AND CLASSICAL CULTURE. 

We are indebted to the ancient Greeks as much for 
what they achieved in education as for what they be- 
queathed to our language and literature. The close 
relationship of physical stamina to character, and the 
necessity of perfecting as far as possible the individual 
man, as conceived by the Greek mind, is one of the 
corner-stones of educational science. Their ideas of 
manhood developed to physical and intellectual perfec- 
tion were idealized in the gods of Mount Olympus, and 
those ideals found expression through the plastic arts 
for the instruction of all mankind. This system of edu- 
cation, so exacting and exclusive, was followed by that 
of the Romans, which was its counterpart in point of 
practical every-day value. The Greeks sought a harmo- 



^8 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

nious culture that would make men godlike ; the Ro- 
mans aimed at a severely practical training which would 
make men of the world, as orators, warriors, and states- 
men. I speak particularly of these two systems, as 
they suggest that conflict between the ideal and the 
practical which has stamped all educational history 
since the time of Christ. The claims of both sides 
have been heard. To develop the individual, and at 
the same time to fit him to be useful, has been, and 
must be, the aim of every thoughtful educator. 

With so great a contribution to modern education 
from the Pagan world we can hardly expect to find in 
the Christian system of the Middle Ages anything more 
valuable. The dominant type of education was that of 
the monastery, and it was far more ecclesiastical than 
practical. The castle and the town provided some in- 
struction, but the humanistic teaching of the schoolmen 
became the staple. It was the germ of modern classical 
training. Passing on to the theories of the realists, of 
whom Comenius was a leader, we find them to be in 
sharp contrast to what had gone before. The best 
teaching of to-day obeys many of their rules. To follow 
the order of nature, to teach one thing at a time, to 
avoid compulsion, to learn little " by heart," to study 
things and processes first and then the rule, — these 
and other principles come to us as a legacy from the 
sixteenth century. s. t. duttton. 

Homer is the master to whom I am indebted for 
whatever merit I have, if indeed I have any at all. It 
is difficult to attain to excellence in taste without a 
knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages. 

Diderot. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



79 



It is not enough to have a sound mind ; the principal 
thing is to make a good use of it. 



Descartes. 



THE POSITION OF HONOR. 

As so much depends on a right start in school work, 
too great care cannot be exercised in the selection of 
teachers for these lower grades. New teachers should 
never be placed here to experiment ; but successful 
experience and superior merit should be considered 
necessary qualifications of a teacher for the lower pri- 
maries. Then let the ambition of these teachers be not 
to take higher-grade classes, but to perfect themselves 
as primary teachers. There is no more honorable 
position. ^ ^ ^^3^^ 

MAN'S THREE TEACHERS. 

It is indeed true that one of the great secrets of the 
power of education, in its application to large numbers, 
is, that it is a mutual work. Man has three teachers, — 
the schoolmaster, himself, his neighbor. The instruc- 
tions of the first two commence together ; and long 
after the functions of the schoolmaster have been dis- 
charged, the duties of the last two go on together. 
And what they effect is vastly more important than 
the work of the teacher, if estimated by the amount of 
knowledge self-acquired, or caught by the collision or 
sympathy of other minds, compared with that which 
is directly imparted by the schoolmaster, in the morning 
of life. In fact, what we learn at school and in college 
is but the foundation of the great work of self-instruc- 



8o EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

tion and mutual instruction with which the real educa- 
tion of life begins, when v/hat is commonly called the 
education is finished. The daily intercourse of culti- 
vated minds ; the emulous exertions of the fellow- 
votaries of knowledge ; controversy ; the inspiring sym- 
pathy of a curious and intelligent public, — unite in 
putting each individual intellect to the strength of its 
capacity. A hint, a proposition, an inquiry, proceeding 
from one mind, awakens new trains of thought in a 
kindred mind, surveying the subject from other points 
of view, and with other habits and resources of illustra- 
tion ; and thus truth is constantly multiplied and propa- 
gated, by the mutual action and reaction of the thou- 
sands engaged in its pursuit. Hence the phenomena 
of Periclean, Augustan, and Medicean ages, and golden 
eras of improvement ; and hence the education of each 
individual mind, instead of being merely the addition 
of one to the well-instructed and well-informed mem- 
bers of the community, is the introduction of another 
member into the great family of intellects, each of 
which is a point, not only bright, but radiant, and 
competent to throw off the beams of light and truth in 
every direction. Mechanical forces, from the moment 
they are put in action, by the laws of matter grow 
fainter and fainter, till they are exhausted. With each 
new application something of their intensity is consumed. 
It can only be kept up by a continued or repeated resort 
to the source of power. Could Archimedes have found 
his place to stand upon, and a lever with which he 
could have heaved the earth from its orbit, the ut- 
most he could have effected would have been to make 
it fall a dead weight into the sun. Not so the Intel- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 8 1 

lectual energy. If wisely exerted, its exercise, instead 
of exhausting, increases its strength ; and not only this, 
but, as it moves onward, from mind to mind, it awakens 
each to the same sympathetic, self-propagating action. 
The circle spreads in every direction. Diversity of 
language does not check the progress of the great 
instructor ; for he speaks in other tongues, and gathers 
new powers from the response of other schools of civili- 
zation. The pathless ocean does not impede ; it accel- 
erates his progress. Space imposes no barrier, time no 
period, to his efforts ; and ages on ages after the poor 
clay in which the creative intellect was enshrined has 
mouldered back to its kindred dust, the truths which it 
has unfolded, moral or intellectual, are holding on their 
pathway of light and glory, awakening other minds to 
the same heavenly career. 

Edward Everett. 



Life is the education-time, the seed-time for eternity : 
there lies its whole importance. 



Thomas Erskine. 



THINKING ALONE. 

The student must embrace solitude as a bride. He 
must have his glees and his glooms alone. His own 
estimate must be measure enough, his own praise re- 
ward enough for him. And why must the student be 
solitary and silent .■* That he may become acquainted 
with his thoughts. If he pines in a lonely place, 
hankering for the crovv^d, for display, he is not in the 
lonely place ; his heart is in the market ; he does not 
see ; he does not hear ; he does not think. But go. 



82 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

cherish your soul, expel companions, set your habits to 
a life of solitude ; then will the faculties rise fair and 
full within, like forest-trees and field-flowers ; you will 
have results which, when you meet your fellow-men, 
you can communicate, and they will gladly receive. Do 
not go into solitude only that you may presently come 
into public. Such solitude denies itself ; is public and 
stale. The public can get public experience ; but they 
wish the scholar to replace to them those private, sin- 
cere, divine experiences, of which they have been de- 
frauded by dwelling in the streets. It is the noble, 
manlike, just thought, which is the superiority de- 
manded of you ; and not crowds, but solitude, confers 
this elevation. Not insulation of place, but independ- 
ence of spirit, is essential ; and it is only as the garden, 
the cottage, the forest, and the rock, are a sort of me- 
chanical aids to this that they are of value. Think 
alone, and all places are friendly and sacred. The 
poets who have lived in cities have been hermits still. 
Inspiration makes solitude anywhere. Pindar, Raphael, 
Angelo, Dryden, De Stael, dwell in crowds. It may 
be ; but the instant thought comes, the crowd grows 
dim to their eye ; their eye fixes on the horizon ; — on 
vacant space ; — they forget the bystanders ; they spurn 
personal relations ; they deal with abstractions, with 
verities, with ideas. They are alone with the mind. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

TENURE OF OFFICE. 

The only tenure of ofhce which is fit for a teacher is 
the tenure during good behavior and competency ; and 
this is the only tenure which will secure the services of 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 83 

competent professors in colleges and universities. The 
frequency of the elections of teachers is a very bad 
feature in our public school system. Permanence of 
tenure is necessary to make the position of a teacher 
one of dignity and independeace. Young men of vigor 
and capacity will not enter a profession which offers no 
money prizes, unless they are induced by its stability 
and peacefulness, and by the social consideration which 
attaches to it. The system which prevails in most of 
our large cities and towns, of electing the teachers in 
the public schools at least as often as once a year, is 
inconsistent with this dignity, peacefulness, and consid- 
eration, unless a firmly established custom of re-electing 
incumbents converts the constantly recurring elections 
into mere formalities. 

Charles W. Eliot. 



MORAL PRINCIPLES. 

The duty of instructing the young includes several 
elements, the first and also the chief of which is, that 
the tender mind of the child should be instructed in 
piety ; the second, that he love and learn the liberal 
arts ; the third, that he be taught tact in the conduct of 
social life ; and the fourth, that from his earliest age he 
accustom himself to good behavior, based on moral prin- 
ciples. Erasmus. 

NORMAL SCHOOLS A SUCCESS. 

The normal school has on the whole attained a noble 
success in the United States. To use a less forcible ex- 
pression for this fact would be an excessive affectation 
of a misplaced moderation. Some of the evidences of 



84 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

this success have been indicated. They are found in the 
multiphcation of the schools, in the demand for the ser- 
vices of the teachers educated in them. They are also 
found in the introduction of normal departments into 
colleges, academies, and seminaries. They are found in 
the confidence with which the public regard the schools 
generally. They are found in the genuine and substan- 
tial progress in education which they have done so much 
to promote. To ignore this great fact, much more to 
deny it, would be not only unpolitic, but unjust. 

Richard Edwards. 

NO DARK CONTINENTS. 

How should the promoters of culture in every sphere 
and under every condition be up and doing ! There 
should be no dark continent or island or corner ; there 
should be no hiding-place for ignorance and its myriads 
of vassals where the light does not enter. Clearly, 
would you make the best of an individual, or a people, 
or a race, or a nation, you must go to education for the 
secrets of your success. Theories may be proclaimed 
in the valleys and from the mountain tops, the armies of 
the world may be marshalled upon its plains, the navies 
of the world may plough its seas, wealth may be accumu- 
lated until gold gilds the palaces of the rich, commerce 
may encircle the world, traversing the seas with its ves- 
sels, penetrating the mountains and spanning the rivers 
and valleys with its rails ; emperors and kings and presi- 
dents and governors may proclaim their decrees and 
laws, and all, all will be in vain, if the schoolmaster, 
fully panoplied and fitly furnished for the right educa- 
tion of every child, is not abroad. 

John Eaton. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 85 

You are well aware that it is not only by bodily exer- 
cises, by educational institutions, or by lessons in music 
that our youth are trained, but much more effectually 
by public examples. 

ESCHINES. 



INDIVIDUAL POSSIBILITY AND HUMAN AID. 

Wherever there is a human mind possessed of the 
common faculties, and placed in a body organized with 
the common senses, there is an active, intelligent being, 
competent, with the proper cultivation, to the discovery 
of the highest truths in the natural, the social, and the 
political world. It is susceptible of demonstration, if 
demonstration were necessary, that the number of dis- 
tinguished men which are to benefit and adorn the soci- 
ety around us will be exactly proportioned, upon the 
whole, to the means and encouragements to improve- 
ment existing in the community ; and everything which 
multiplies these means and encouragements tends, in 
the same proportion, to the multiplication of inventions 
and discoveries, useful and honorable to man. The 
mind, although it does not stand in need of high cul- 
ture, for the attainment of great excellence does yet 
stand in need of some culture, and cannot thrive with- 
out it. When it is once awakened, and inspired with a 
consciousness of its own powers, and nourished into 
vigor by the intercourse of kindred minds, either 
through books or living converse, it does not disdain, 
but it needs not, further extraneous aid. It ceases to 
be a pupil ; it sets up for itself ; it becomes a master of 
truth, and goes fearlessly onward, sounding its way. 



86 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

through the darkest regions of investigation. But it is 
almost indispensable that, in some way or other, the ele- 
ments of truth should be imparted from kindred minds ; 
and if these are wholly withheld, the intellect, which, if 
properly cultivated, might have soared with Newton to 
the boundaries of the comet's orbit, is chained down to 
the wants and imperfections of mere physical life, uncon- 
scious of its own capacities, and unable to fulfil its higher 
destiny. 

Contemplate, at this season of the year, one of the 
magnificent oak-trees of the forest, covered with thou- 
sands and thousands of acorns. There is not one of 
those acorns that does not carry within itself the germ 
of a perfect oak, as lofty and as wide-spreading as the 
parent stock ; which does not enfold the rudiments of 
a tree, that would strike its roots in the soil, and lift its 
branches towards the heavens, and brave the storms of 
a hundred winters. It needs, for this, but a handful of 
soil to receive the acorn as it falls, a little moisture to 
nourish it, and protection from violence till the root is 
struck. It needs but these ; and these it does need, and 
these it must have ; and for want of them, trifling as 
they seem, there is not one out of a thousand of those 
innumerable acorns which is destined to become a tree. 

It is for want of the little that human means must add 
to the wonderful capacity for improvement born in man, 
that by far the greatest part of the intellect innate in 
our race perishes undeveloped and unknown. When an 
acorn falls upon an unfavorable spot, and decays there, 
we know the extent of the loss, — it is that of a tree, 
like the one from which it fell ; but when the intellect 
of a rational being, for want of culture, is lost to the 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 8/ 

great ends for which it was created, it is a loss which 
no one can measure, either for time or for eternity. 

Edward Everett. 



The safe path to excellence and success in every call- 
ing is that of appropriate preliminary education, diligent 
application to learn the art, and assiduity in practising 
it. 

Edward Everett. 

EDUCATED PUBLIC OPINION. 

With reverence for self, comes respect for others ; 
with knowledge of self, comes knowledge of the self- 
same laws that govern others, and, by consequence, a 
knowledge of, and respect for, the rights of others, 
which attained, the advancement of society in the paths 
of peace and prosperity is made certain. Liberty and 
order in all their beauty and perfect harmony, are secure 
in citadels unassailable ; for a true and intelligent pub- 
lic opinion, with its wide-mouthed cannon and its shin- 
ing bayonets, surrounds and guards them on every side ; 
while in turn, it receives from them, as from an unfail- 
ing fountain, the waters which feed and purify it. 

George F. Edmunds. 



CULTIVATED MANNERS. 

Manners are the happy way of doing things; each 
one a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and 
hardened into usage, they form at last a rich varnish, 
with which the routine of life is washed, and its details 
adorned. If they are superficial, so are the dewdrops 



88 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

which give such a depth to the morning meadows. 
Manners are very communicable; men catch them from 
each other. Consuelo, in the romance, boasts of the les- 
sons she had given the nobles in manners on the stage and 
in real life. Talma taught Napoleon the art of behavior. 
Genius invents fine manners, which the baron and the 
baroness copy very fast, and, by the advantage of a 
palace, better the instruction. They stereotype the les- 
son they have learned into a mode. The power of man- 
ner is incessant — an element as unconcealable as fire. 
The nobility cannot in any country be disguised, and no 
more in a republic or a democracy than in a kingdom. 
No man can resist their influence. There are certain 
manners which are learned in good society, of that force, 
that, if a person have them, he or she must be consid- 
ered and is everywhere welcome, though without beauty, 
or wealth, or genius. Give a boy address and accom- 
plishments, and you give him the mastery of palaces 
and fortunes where he goes ; he has not the trouble of 
earning or owning them ; they solicit him to enter and 
possess. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 



THE GREEK LANGUAGE. 

The history of the Greek language is one of the most 
interesting subjects of literary investigation. Men of 
the clearest judgment unite with enthusiastic scholars 
in declaring it to be unrivalled for richness, copiousness, 
and strength. The old Ionic form, with its sounding 
Combinations of vowels, gives a beautiful and liquid 
flow, while its happy descriptive and imitative epithets 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 89 

impart the liveliness of painting itself to the stately 
hexameter. The Doric is sweet and simple in pastoral 
poetry, but rises to a severe grandeur in the lyrics of 
Pindar, and the choral songs of the tragedians. The 
Attic is the language of dramatic dialogue, history, 
logic, and philosophy ; the language of the high-wrought, 
impassioned argument of Demosthenes, the smooth elo- 
quence of Isocrates, the refined subtilty of Lysias ; the 
language of the wire-drawn reasonings of Socrates, and 
the stern truths of Thucydides. Now, whence came 
this curiously contrived instrument of human thought .'' 
What strange coincidence of happy influences wrought 
out of the simple elements of sound its extraordinary 
variety of expressive powers .'' What finely organized 
people first gave utterance to its immortal harmonies t 
From what region, blessed with Heaven's selectest in- 
fluence, came they to the shores of Greece t These are 
questions which have exercised the wits of the acutest 
men, and the learning of the ablest scholars, but with 
no very satisfactory result. 

C. C. Felton. 



READ THE ORIGINALS. 

When youth are told that the great men whose lives 
and actions they read in history spoke two of the best 
languages that ever were, the most expressive, copious, 
beautiful ; and that the finest writings, the most correct 
compositions, the most perfect productions of human 
wit and wisdom, are in those languages, which have en- 
dured for ages, and will endure while there are men ; 
that no translation can do them justice, or give the 



go 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



pleasure found in reading the originals ; that those orig- 
inal languages contain all science ; that one of them is 
become almost universal, being the language of learned 
men in all countries ; and that to understand them is a 
distinguishing ornament ; they may be thereby made 
desirous of learning those languages, and their industry 
sharpened in the acquisition of them. All intended for 
divinity should be taught the Latin and Greek ; for 
physics, the Latin, Greek, and French ; for law, the 
Latin and French ; merchants, the French, German, 
and Spanish ; and, though all should not be compelled to 
learn Latin, Greek, or the modern foreign languages, 
yet none that have an ardent desire to learn them should 
be refused ; their English, arithmetic, and other studies 
absolutely necessary, not being neglected. 

Benjamin Franklin. 

This whole earth can be but a place of tuition till it 
becomes either a depopulated ruin or an elysium of per- 
fect and happy beings. 

John Foster. 

WILL IT PAY? 

Hardly a week passes that fathers and mothers and 
teachers do not ask me whether it will pay to send some 
bright, ambitious girl to college. There is but one 
answer : If civilization pays, if education is not a mis- 
take, if hearts and brains and souls are more than the 
dress they wear, then, by every interest dear to a Chris- 
tian republic, by all the hope we have of building finer 
characters than former generations have produced, give 
the girls the widest and the highest and the deepest 



EDUCATIOATAL MOSAICS. 



91 



education we have dreamed of, and then regret that it 
is not better, broader, and deeper. 

France never needed educated mothers as America 
needs them to-day, and France nor Europe ever real- 
ized the glory of civilization which will crown our 
Republic when all the homes, schoolrooms, and churches 
are filled with women as intelligent as they are loving, 
as broad-minded as they are large-hearted, as strong in 
body and mind as they have proved themselves generous 
in heart. The civilization of the Anglo-Saxon race in 
America, therefore, depends upon the education — 
physical, mental, moral, and social — of the women for 
the next fifty years. 

Miss Auce E. Freeman. 



NEGLECTING THE MIND. 

It is an extraordinary thing that man, with a mind so 
wonderful that there is nothing to compare with it else- 
where in the known creation, should leave it to run wild in 
respect of its highest elements and qualities. He has a 
power of comparison and judgment, by which his final 
resolves, and all those acts of his material system which 
distinguish him from the brutes, are guided ; shall he 
omit to educate and improve them when education can 
do so much } Is it towards the very principles and 
privileges that distinguish him above other creatures, 
he should feel indifference .-* Because the education is 
internal, it is not the less needful ; nor is it the more 
the duty of a man that he should cause his child to be 
taught than that he should teach himself. Indolence 
may tempt him to neglect the self-examination and ex- 
perience which form his school, and weariness may 



92 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

induce the evasion of the necessary practices ; but 
surely a thought of the prize should suffice to stimulate 
him to the requisite exertion ; and to those who reflect 
upon the many hours and days devoted by a lover of 
sweet sounds to gain a moderate facility upon a mere 
mechanical instrument, it ought to bring a correcting 
blush of shame, if they feel convicted of neglecting the 
beautiful living instrument wherein play all the powers 
of the mind. 

Michael Faraday. 



GEOGRAPHY, PHYSICAL AND POLITICAL. 

Connect from the first, Physical geography with that 
which is called Political. By the former of course is 
meant the geography of the world as it would have been 
if man had never lived on it ; by the latter is meant all 
those facts which are the result of man's residence on 
the earth. But the second class of facts is nearly al- 
ways to be accounted for by a study of the first. The 
earth is wonderfully designed for human habitation. It 
is our granary, our vineyard, our lordly pleasure-house. 
In some parts Nature is bountiful, in others penurious ; 
over some she sheds beauty, in others she offers ma- 
terial prosperity ; at one place she hides treasure, at 
another she spreads it on the surface. In some places 
she invites neighboring peoples to intercourse, in others 
she erects impenetrable barriers between them ; in some 
she lures the inhabitants to peaceful, prosaic industry, 
in others terrifies them by displays of awful and inex- 
plicable forces. And even of those regions which she 
seems not to have designed for our use — the torrid 
desert, the lonely rocky mountains, and the mysterious 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 



93 



ice-bound regions of the poles — may we not truly say, 
that they too are part of the bountiful provision she has 
made for our many-sided wants ? For they impress and 
exalt our imagination, they minister to our sense of 
beauty, and yet at the same time they humble our pride, 
and make us feel that there is something more in the 
world than is immediately and easily intelligible to us. 
They give us, in short, a sense of the mystery, the 
vastness, and the sumptuousness of the world, which is 
very necessary for a right estimate of our own true 
place in it. 

And with such considerations before us we see how 
curiously the mere physical conditions in which man is 
placed determine his habits, the life he leads, the kind 
of societies he forms, the character and the history of 
different races. 

J. G. Fitch. 

Unity and variety, as perfectly united as possible, are 
what education should strive after. 

Froebel. 



OPEN EYES. 



Classical philosophy, classical history and literature, 
taking, as they do, no hold upon the living hearts and 
imagination of men in this modern age, leave their 
working intelligence a prey to wild imaginations, and 
make them incapable of really understanding the world 
in which they live. If the clergy knew as much of the 
history of England and Scotland as they know about 
Greece and Rome, if they had ever been taught to open 
their eyes and see what is actually round them instead 



94 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



of groping among books to find what men did or 
thought at Alexandria or Constantinople fifteen hundred 
years ago, they would grapple more effectively with the 
moral pestilence which is poisoning all the air. 

J. A. Froude. 

THE TEACHER'S MONUMENT. 
Let this amongst other motives make schoolmasters 
careful in their place, that the eminencies of their schol- 
ars have commended the memories of their schoolmas- 
ters to posterity, who otherwise in obscurity had 
altogether been forgotten. Who had ever heard of R. 
Bond in Lancashire, but for the breeding of learned 
Ascham, his scholar; or of Hartgrave in Brundley 
school, in the same county, but because he was the first 
did teach worthy Dr. Whittaker } Nor do I honor the 
memory of Mulcaster for anything so much as for his 
scholar, that gulf of learning. Bishop Andrews. This 
made the Athenians, the day before the great feast of 
Theseus their founder, to sacrifice a ram to the memory 
of Conidas his schoolmaster that first instructed him. 

Thomas Fuller. 

When there is no recreation or business for thee 
abroad, thou may'st then have a company of honest old 
fellows in leathern jackets, in thy study, which may 'find 
thee excellent divertisement at home. 

Thomas Fuller. 



FACTS AND PRINCIPLES. 



Detached facts on miscellaneous subjects, as they are 
taught at a modern school, are like separate letters of 



EDUCATIOIVAL MOSAICS. 



95 



endless alphabets. You may load the mechanical mem- 
ory with them till it becomes a marvel of retentiveness. 
Your young prodigy may amaze examiners and delight 
inspectors. His achievements may be emblazoned in 
blue-books, and furnish matter for flattering reports on 
the excellence of .our educational system ; and all this 
while you have been feeding him with chips of granite. 
But arrange your letters into words, and each becomes 
a thought, a symbol waking in the mind an image of a 
real thing. Group your words into sentences, and 
thought is married to thought and produces other 
thoughts, and the chips of granite become soft bread, 
wholesome, nutritious, and invigorating. Teach your 
boys subjects which they can only remember mechani- 
cally, and you teach them nothing which it is worth 
their while to know. Teach them facts and principles 
which they can apply and use in the work of their lives ; 
and if the object be to give your clever working lads a 
chance of rising to become presidents of the United 
States, or millionnaires with palaces and powdered foot- 
men, the ascent into those blessed conditions will be 
easier and healthier along the track of an instructed in- 
dustry, than by the paths which the most keenly sharp- 
ened wits would be apt to choose for themselves. 

J. A. Froude. 



THE LIFE SCIENCES. 



The sciences, of which I notice a great and general 
ignorance even among our best public school educated 
men, — that of the air, the earth, the water, — touch us 
at all points, every day, every hour, every where — they 



96 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. . 

make up life. And it is difficult to make such adult 
minds comprehend simple explanations, which if ad- 
dressed to young people in school or in the shop, will be 
both intelligible, interesting, and profitable. I never yet 
found a boy so young as not to be able to understand 
by a simple explanation and to enjoy the point of an ex- 
periment. I find the grown-up minds coming back to 
me with the same questions over and over again. They 
are not prepared to receive these notions. They need 
the A B C of the subjects. I could teach a little boy of 
eleven years old, of ordinary intelligence, all those 
things in mechanics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, optics, 
which are usually taught at a much later period. These 
subjects, and chemistry and botany, should receive at- 
tention in apposite ways and times in school. 

Michael Faraday. 



Every man, unless he believes that he fell from the 
clouds, or that the beginning of the world dates at the 
date of his own birth, should take pains to become ac- 
quainted With what has taken place at other times and 
in other countries. 

Frederick the Great. 

CULTIVATE THE FANCY. 

Acquaint thyself with reading poets, for there Fancy 
is on her throne ; and in time, the sparks of the author's 
wit will eatch hold on the reader, and inflame him with 
love, liking, and desire of imitation. I confess there is 
more required to teach one to write than to see a copy ; 
however, there is a secret force of fascination in reading 
poems to raise and provoke the fancy. . . . Acquaint thy- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



97 



self by degrees with hard and knotty studies, as school 
divinity, which will clog thy over-nimble fancy. True, 
at the first it will be as welcome to thee as a prison, and 
their very solutions will seem knots unto thee. But 
take not too much at once, lest thy brain turn edge. 
Taste it first as a potion for physic, and by degrees thou 
shalt drink it as beer, for thirst ; practice will make it 
pleasant. Mathematics are also good for this purpose. 
If beginning to make a conclusion, thou must make an 
end, lest thou lose thy pains that are past, and must 
proceed seriously and exactly. 



Thomas Fuller. 



Instruction does not prevent waste of time or mis- 
takes ; and mistakes themselves are often the best 
teachers of all. 

J. A. Froude. 

MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES. 

We return finally to the fundamental reason for teach- 
ing mathematics at all either to boys or men. Is it 
because the doctrines of number and of magnitude are 
in themselves so valuable, or stand in any visible relation 
to the subjects with which we have to deal most in after 
life } Assuredly not. But it is because a certain kind 
of mental exercise, of unquestioned service in connection 
with all conceivable subjects of thought, is best to be 
had in the domain of mathematics. Because in that high 
and serene region there is no party spirit, no personal 
controversy, no compromise, no balancing of probabili- 
ties, no painful misgiving lest what seems true to-day 



98 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



may prove to be false to-morrow. Here, at least, the 
student moves from step to step, from premise to in- 
ference, from the known to the hitherto unknown, from 
antecedent to consequent, with a firm and assured tread ; 
knowing well that he is in the presence of the highest 
certitude of which the human intelligence is capable, 
and that these are the methods by which approximate 
certitude is attainable in other departments of knowl- 
edge. No doubt your mere mathematician, if there be 
such a person, — he who expects to find all the truth in 
the world formulated and demonstrable in the same way 
as the truths of mathematics, — is a poor creature, or, to 
say the least, a very incomplete scholar. But he who 
has received no mathematical training, who has never 
had that side of his mind trained which deals with neces- 
sary truth, and with the rigorous, pitiless logic by which 
conclusions about circles and angles and numbers are 
arrived at, is more incomplete still ; he is like one who 
lacks a sense; for him "wisdom at one entrance " is 
"quite shut out," he is destitute of one of the chief 
instruments by which knowledge is attained. 

Nor is it enough to regard mathematical science only 
in its far-reaching applications to such other subjects as 
astronomy and physics, or even in its indirect efficacy in 
strengthening the faculty of ratiocination in him who 
studies it. There is something surely in the beauty of 
the truths themselves. We are the richer — even though 
we look at them for their own sakes merely — for dis- 
cerning the subtle harmonies and affinities of number 
and of magnitude, and the wonderful way in which, 
out of a few simple postulates and germinating truths, 
the mind of man can gradually unfold a whole sys- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



99 



tern of new and beautiful theorems, expanding into 
infinite and unexpected uses and applications. And as 
we look on them we are fain to say, as the brother in 
Comus said of a kind of philosophy which was novel to 
him, and which, perhaps, he had hitherto despised, that 
it is indeed 

*'Not harsh or crabbed, as dull fools suppose, 
But musical as is Apollo's lute, 
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets 
Where no crude surfeit reigns." 

J. G. Fitch. 



UNITY IN VARIETY. 

All education must be according to nature. But 
since the first law of nature generally, and of human 
development especially, is unity in variety, therefore 
education must steadily have regard to this rule ; and 
must seek to develop variety out of unity ; so that a 
spherical figure is the image of this requirement. . . . 
True human training requires that man should be devel- 
oped from within himself, a unity of spirit and feeling 
cultivated, and educated into an independent and all- 
sided expression of the unity of his mind and feelings. 



No important result can be attained with regard to 
the accomplishment of any object which affects the 
temporal or eternal well-being of our species, without 
enlisting an entire devotedness to it, of intelligence, 
zeal, fidelity, industry, integrity, and practical exertion. 

Thomas H. Gallaudet. 



lOO EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

DANGEROUS AMBITION. 

Amongst the feelings which may animate a nation, 

there is one, the absence of which would be much to be 

deplored if it existed not, but which we should take care 

neither to flatter nor excite where we find it in exercise, 

— the sentiment of ambition. I honor aspiring spirits. 
Much is to be expected from them, provided they cannot 
easily attempt all they desire to accomplish. And as, in 
our days, of all ambitions the most ardent, if not the 
most apparent, especially amongst the industrial classes, 
is the ambition of intelligence, from which they look for 
the gratifications of self-love and the means of fortune 

— it is that, above all others, the development of which, 
while we treat it with indulgence, we should watch over 
and direct with unceasing care. I know nothing at 
present more injurious to society, or more hurtful to the 
people themselves, than the small amount of ill-directed 
popular erudition, and the vague, incoherent, and false, 
although, at the same time, active and powerful, ideas 
with which it fills their heads. 

GUIZOT. 



REVERENCE FOR BOYS. 

I FEEL a profounder reverence for a boy than for a 
man. I never meet a raggjed boy of the street, without 
feeling that I may owe him a salute, for I know not 
what possibilities may be buttoned up under his shabby 
coat. When I meet you in the full flush of mature life, 
I see nearly all there is of you ; but among the boys are 
the great men of the future ; the heroes of the next gen- 
eration; the philosophers, the statesmen, the philan- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 10 1 

thropists, the great reformers and moulders of the next 
age. Therefore, I say, there is a peculiar charm to me 
in the exhibitions of young people engaged in the'busi- 
ness of education. 

James A. Garfield. 



BABY SCIENTISTS. 



All the sciences begin in the cradle. In the simplest 
form observed by the child, lies the beginning of both 
natural history and geometry. In its first conscious 
exercise of motion and force, begin natural philosophy 
and mechanics. In the watched play of a sunbeam, is 
read the first lesson in optics and astronomy. With the 
counted fingers begins elementary arithmetic. The first 
expeditions of the tiny pattering feet invade the realms 
of geography and geology, and the busy play of childish 
hands explore half a score of sciences. Even the meta- 
physical sciences are begun here. In the recognized 
word of endearment, or the familiarized call to food, 
both language and logic has a place ; and mental philos- 
ophy begins with the first perception of thought or feel- 
ing read by the child in the mother's face. No pupil 
enters our public schools who has not already begun the 
study of every branch of knowledge, and acquired hun- 
dreds of facts in every one of the sciences. Every sci- 
ence, in its infancy, began with just such facts as these, 
— simple facts of sense, — and centuries of observation 
and slow accumulation passed by, before the scientific 
formula was reached, and the underlying philosophies 
emerged to view. 

John M. Gregory. 



102 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. , 

ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

One of the principal advantages of the class-room 
study of English literature is that it familiarizes the 
student with suitable models for composition and places 
before him lofty, yet not altogether unattainable, ideals. 
In the choice of authors to be read, and in our methods 
of study, this end should be distinctly borne in mind. 
Meanwhile, from advanced students, I would require 
brief dissertations on special points illustrative of the 
work in hand or cognate themes. But I should take 
especial pains not to make the authors in hand a weari- 
ness or a bore to my pupils, passing pretty rapidly from 
one author to another. To know a little about an 
author and love him, is a great deal better, in the long 
run, than to know a good deal about that author and 
detest him. From the modern and more easily appre- 
hended specimens of English and American literature, 
I should work back to those which are more obscure 
and more difficult. My object throughout would be to 
cultivate an intelligent appreciation — a positive love — • 
for those treasures of genius, those masterpieces of 
literary art, which are embodied in our mother tongue ; 
such a love as would be a delight, a sustaining, comfort- 
ing, restraining influence throughout life. It is, as I 
understand it, the function of the teacher of English 
literature, in our acadamies and high schools, to do for 
those devoid of home culture what is done spontane- 
ously, and without care or pains, in those abodes of 
refinement where the names, the works of those 

" Dead but accepted sovereigns who still rule 
Our spirits from their urns " 

are from childhood as household words. 

J. H. GiLMORE. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 103 



THE STUDY OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

Next, I mention as the subject for university study, 
Psychology, the nature of man's soul, the characteris- 
tics of his mental and moral activity. This science has 
lately made great progress ; it has improved its methods 
and enlarged its scope. Those who are devoted to it 
appreciate the inherited experiences of the human race, 
and are not indifferent to the lessons which may pro- 
ceed from intuition and introspection ; they study all 
the manifestations of intellectual life ; but, on the other 
hand, they are not afraid to inquire, and they know how 
to inquire, into the physical conditions under which the 
mind works : they watch the spontaneous, unconven- 
tional actions of children ; they investigate the laws of 
heredity ; they examine with curious gaze the eccen- 
tricities of genius; and with discerning, often with 
remedial eye, the alienation of human powers ; and they 
believe that by a combination of these and other meth- 
ods of research, among which experiment has its legiti- 
mate place, the conduct of the human understanding 
and the laws of progressive morality will be better un- 
derstood, so that more v/holesome methods of education 
will be employed in schools of every grade. They ac- 
knowledge the superiority of the soul to the body, and 
they stand in awe before the mysteries which are as 
impenetrable to modern investigators as they were to 
Leibnitz and Spinosa, to Abelard and Aquinas, to Aris- 
totle and Plato, the mystery of man's conscious respon- 
sibility, his intimations of immortality, his relations to 
the Infinite. 

Daniel C. Oilman, 



104 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



THE TEACHER A STUDENT. 



It is the business of a university to advance knowl- 
edge ; every professor must be a student. No history 
is so remote that it may be neglected ; no law of mathe- 
matics is so hidden that it may not be sought out ; no 
problem in respect to physics is so difficult that it must 
be shunned. No love of ease, no dread of labor, no 
fear of consequences, no desire for wealth, will deter a 
band of well-chosen professors from uniting their forces 
in the prosecution of study. Rather let me say that 
there are heroes and martyrs, prophets and apostles of 
learning, as there are of religion. To the claims of 
duty, to the responsibilities of station, to the voices of 
enlightened conscience, such men respond, and they 
throw their hearts into their work with as much devo- 
tion, and as little selfishness, as it is possible for human 
nature to exhibit. By their labors knowledge has been 
accumulated, intellectual capital has been acquired. In 
these processes of investigation the leading universities 
of the world are engaged. 

This is what laboratories, museums, and libraries sig- 
nify. Nothing is foreign to their purpose, and those 
who work in them are animated by the firm belief that 
the advancement of knowledge in any direction con- 
tributes to the welfare of man. Nor is research re- 
stricted to material things — the scholars of a university 
are equally interested in all that pertains to the nature 
of man, the growth of society, the study of language, 
and the establishment of the principles of intellectual 
and moral conduct. 

Daniel C. Oilman. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



TIME-SERVERS. 



105 



Our young people should be taught to be always 
alive to the circumstances which surround them ; and, 
in the only good and happy sense of the term, to be 
time-servers. It is desirable that they should be ob- 
servant not only of their books, but of all things not 
sinful which meet their perception, in the passing scen- 
ery of life. By this means they will greatly increase 
their store of knowledge, and will be gradually prepared 
for usefulness in their day and generation. 

Joseph John Gurnev. 



MORAL ENTHUSIASM. 

An intense moral enthusiasm must underlie and fur- 
nish the most powerful spring of every truly noble life. 
A soul without such motive must fail. Half-hearted 
work can never succeed where man has all the forces of 
nature, and all the adverse forces of his own being and 
of society to contend with, master, and turn to account. 
One who saw Michael Angelo engaged at his work tells 
us that he wrought with fearful energy and earnestness. 
He would accomplish many times as much as other 
men. Every stroke was so with all the soul, that, as he 
saw the huge fragments fly from the rapid blows, the 
observer trembled lest the statue should be ruined. 
But the enthusiastic workman held ceaselessly on, cut- 
ting and filing, dashing off as incumbrances every parti- 
cle which hindered the completion of the likeness, until 
the once shapeless block took shape and polish and 
beauty, and stood forth the finished v/ork of his hand. 



I06 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

his brain, his soul, his hfe, and the perfect embodiment 
of his ideal. An}^ man who would accomplish the true 
work of life may see in the great sculptor his model. 
With the grandest possible mission of duty taking hold 
on God and immortality, his may well be the grandest 
possible moral enthusiasm ; and with the whole being 
directed ceaselessly to the fulfilment of such a mission 
under the influence of such a motive, his may well be 
the grandest possible moral success. 

D. S. Gregory. 



A PLEA FOR THE CLASSICS. 

The scientific school and the classical cannot coalesce. 
They differ in the choice of studies. They also differ in 
the modes and in the aims of study. The one is special, 
the other general. The one assumes a chosen field of 
work, and prepares the student to fill it. The other 
knows nothing about the student's ultimate intentions, 
and cares nothing for them. The one dismisses its 
pupil with a certificate of preparation for his future 
work. The other admonishes him that his broader 
study must be supplemented by his technical training. 
To substitute the scientific school for the classical is 
merely to build the superstructure at the expense of its 
foundation, to let an easier and a shorter discipline take 
the place of a severer and a more prolonged. If the 
additional time gained for a practical branch of educa- 
tion secures greater depth of acquirement, this advan- 
tage is offset by the loss of that breadth which is even 
more important to youth. Of course, in dealing with 
the higher education we must assume the student's 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 



107 



ability to give to it the necessary time, just as the exist- 
ence of the higher schools implies wealth and leisure 
and culture in the community which supports them. 
The classical school could not exist in a purely indus- 
trial society, dependent for its daily support on its daily 
labor. 

The choice then urged upon us is between a prepara- 
tory education that is general, and one that is special ; 
between a course of study which is built up on the 
Greek as the most perfect language for the expression 
of human thought ever used by man, the language 
underlying all modern literature and permeating ,all 
western culture, and a course that substitutes for the 
Greek something, the acquisition of which involves less 
labor and requires less time. I say build up on the 
Greek, for its influence upon the Latin was so strong 
that to one ignorant of it, Roman literature is meaning- 
less, and Roman history, during the periods in which 
Roman action and Roman thought have most affected 
our own, becomes unintelligible. I say build up on the 
Greek, for broad culture involves Greek learning by an 
implication more close and necessary than I fear even 
some of our instructors are willing to admit. Without 
Greek the very name of classical education becomes a 
misnomer. One half of modern and mediaeval life can 
be explained only by reference to Roman letters, 
Roman thought, and Roman law, and all these drew 
their inspiration and much of their matter from that 
long roll which contains the records of Greek genius, 
beginning with the marvellous songs of the Homeric 
Skalds, and for us ending with the splendid harangues 
of Chrusostomos. 

Arnold Green. 



I08 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

The love of study, a passion which derives fresh vigor 
from enjoyment, supplies each day, each hour, with a 
perpetual source of independent and rational pleasure. 

Edward Gibbon. 



EDUCATION LIFE-LONG. 

It is an error to suppose that a course of study is 
confined to the period of youth, and that when a young 
man has left school or college, he has finished his educa- 
tion, and has nothing to study but his profession. In 
truth he has done little more than treasure up some of 
the important materials and acquire the elementary 
habits and discipline which are indispensable to the 
continued improvement of his mind. If he expects to 
be a scholar, not in the literary sense of the word, but 
in a far higher and nobler sense, as a Christian, patriot, 
philanthropist, and public servant, in the state or 
national councils, in literary, benevolent, and religious 
institutions ; if he means to be distinguished for his 
sense of duty, and his spirit of usefulness, for just prin- 
ciples, enlarged views, dignified sentiments and liberal 
feelings, for sound thinking and clear, close reasoning, 
let him be assured that he has done little more than lay 
the foundations, in the school, or even in the college, up 
to the age of twenty. He must make up his mind to'be 
a devoted student, in spite of his professional engage- 
ments, for ten years at least ; until he shall have been 
able to deepen, and strengthen, and enlarge, and elevate 
his mind, so as to fit himself for solid, honorable, per- 
manent usefulness. Let him remember that the school 
only prepares the youth to enter on the course of study 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 109 

appropriate to the young man ; and that the college only 
enables the young man to enter on the course of study 
appropriate to the man. Manhood has its appropriate 
course of study, and the difference between men arises 
very much from their selection and pursuit of a right 
course of study. Many fine minds, capable of enlarged 
and durable improvement and usefulness, are lost every 
year to the community in which their lot is cast, to the 
country they are bound to serve, to the cause of religion, 
humanity, justice, and literature ; because they have 
failed in this great duty, they have neglected the course 
of study appropriate to manhood. And here let it be 
remarked that the true student never considers how 
much he reads, but rather how little, and only what and 
how he reads. 

T. S. Grimke. 



A NEGLECTED STUDY. 

There is one department of industry, that of agricul- 
ture, for which no provision is made in our popular sys- 
tem. There is scarcely anything which has the most 
remote bearing upon the subject. The great business 
of life, for the majority of mankind, is left to be prac- 
tised merely as an art, based upon no scientific princi- 
ples. ''The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the 
children's teeth are set on edge." There is enough 
published on agriculture, there are sufficient induce- 
ments to try experiments, offered by societies and by 
the legislature, but there is wanted a recipient power in 
the general mind, the power of being instructed. . . . 
The title which Boyle has given to one of his essays 
applies with great force to this subject, — ''Of man's 



no EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS.' 

great ignorance of the uses of natural things." This I 
regard as the most glaring defect in our system of 
popular instruction, and one which demands, from the 
magnitude of the interests involved, the immediate and 
earnest attention of all the friends of education. 

Asa Gray. 



Skill is a consequence of education, and skill is a 
power ever tending to increase itself, and improve the 
condition of man. 

Anonymous. 



EDUCATED WQMEN A NECESSITY. 

Every society needs the very best talent, the highest 
cultivated talent that it can get for its own preservation 
and safety, and for its own elevation and progress. 
Every society, I say, needs all and the best intellect that 
it can get. Our own society, our democratic society, 
where all the winds of heaven are permitted to blow 
with such freedom, especially demands this. We have 
a great many adverse influences falling in upon us 
through emigration from the Old World, falling in upon 
us from the savages or demi-savages of the frontier, ris- 
ing upon us from the lower strata of society, and we 
need every influence of good that we can command to 
counteract their effects. We need all the intellect and 
all the heart of society to meet these retrograding, 
down-pulling tendencies. We need particularly the 
assistance of the women. You know it has been said 
that every great man has had a great mother ; we might 
better say that every man who is anything at all has 



EDUCA TIONAL ■ AfOSA/CS. 1 1 1 

had a great mother. As the mother's influence is the 
earliest, so the influence of the woman is the most per- 
manent of all the influences in society. We want that 
influence in its best and noblest form ; we want it in its 
most cultivated form. . . . 

We, of New York, that boasts itself the commercial 
metropolis, should have the ambition at least, if not 
the determination, to make it also the intellectual 
metropolis. We here should open our institutions, for 
we have some of the very great ones, largely endowed 
with means and well supplied with instructors. I say 
that we should insist that New York should keep on a 
level with the other cities of the civilized world, by 
opening all her institutions of learning, particularly the 
higher of them, to the free access of the female sex. 

Parke Godwin. 



THE FASCINATION OF GREEK. 

A PROMINENT Englishman who has carefully watched 
the career of the men who were educated at Oxford and 
Cambridge during the first half of this century, writing 
late in life to an early Oxford friend, makes some sug- 
gestive comments in speaking of the college studies of 
mutual friends. He calls attention to the fact that the 
university men of that period, who have since become 
prominent in literature, politics, and science, are gen- 
erally men who were noted in college as especially pro- 
ficient in the study of Greek. The "honor men" in 
Greek, almost without exception, have made their mark 
in life. This is not equally true, he says, of men who 
have taken honors for scholarship in Latin, the sciences, 



112 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

or mathematics. Greek seemed to be the touchstone 
for abiUty. And the truth educed was, not that excel- 
lence in Greek was the cause of subsequent success, but 
that no other branch of study was so certain to attract 
and to hold those well-balanced, discriminating, yet 
powerful minds which make themselves felt, by words 
and deeds, in the life and the history of a generation. 
Every teacher of the classics has seen this power of the 
genius of the Greek language to choose and hold its 
friends. And yet Greek is commonly spoken of as a 
study which must be disagreeable at first. 

Merrill Edwards Gates. 



Men should not aim at talents they have not, but 
seek to cultivate those they have. 



Anonymous. 



EARLY IMPRESSIONS. 

Let no one think to erase the earliest impressions of 
youth. If they have grown up in a happy freedom, sur- 
rounded with good and noble circumstances, in inter- 
course with good men ; if their masters have taught 
them what must first be learned in order to- make it 
easier to learn all else, and if they have acquired all 
such learning as should never be forgotten ; if their first 
actions have been so managed that they can in future 
perfect themselves in goodness, with greater ease and 
efficiency, without being obliged to unlearn anything ; 
in such cases they will live lives more pure, perfect, and 
happy than persons whose first youthful powers are ex- 
erted in the midst of untoward influences and evils. 

Goethe. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 



113 



If that sense of subordination is not cultivated in 
children which develops aspirations after greatness, the 
result is forwardness and pretension to wisdom. 

Hegel. 



KNOWLEDGE AND DISCIPLINE. 

The great ends of education are two, — knowledge and 
discipline. Knowledge of itself possesses a high value ; 
discipline of itself is much more valuable. This princi- 
ple is universally admitted by educators. Hence, in the 
selection of a course of study, the question asked by 
intelligent men is not what studies will yield the largest 
amount of immediate knowledge, but from what can be 
obtained the highest mental and moral discipline — a 
discipline which will enable its possessors to gather 
knowledge readily in any desired field, and to perform 
with success the various moral duties of life. 

Daniel B. Hagar. 



MACHINE TEACHERS AND METHODS. 

This higher education of teachers as a class renders pos- 
sible the successful introduction into the lower schools, — 
especially into the primary departments, — of those im- 
proved methods of instruction which have lifted teach- 
ing from something less than an empiric art to the level 
of a science, and are doing more than any other agency 
to make knowledge loved by the whole people. With- 
out the character, training and resources which come 
to our teachers from a high-school education, these 
methods would prove an utter failure, or degenerate into 
a mechanism more lifeless than the worse mechanism of 



114 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

the dreadful past ; for it may be stated as an educa- 
tional axiom, that intelligent methods can be applied by 
intelligent teachers only. Machine methods are neces- 
sary wherever machine teachers are found. 

John Hancock. 



PHILOSOPHICAL TEACHING. 

Philosophical teaching flows from a scientific knowl- 
edge of education. It embraces, first, a knowledge of 
the mind, and of minds ; second, a knowledge of the 
branches of knowledge taught ; third, a knowledge of the 
relations of these branches and the mind, considered as 
the materials or instruments of education, not to men- 
tion other matters. Such knowledge as this includes 
personal experience, but it also includes much of the 
best that has been thought and said of the science, his- 
tory, and art of education. Accordingly the philosoph- 
ical teacher expands what he has seen and thought into 
what others have seen and thought ; he has corrected 
his own theories and tested his own process by bringing 
them into contact with the general body of educational 
doctrine and history. Perhaps it is needless to say that 
this is the highest kind of teaching ; and that to lift the 
teaching of the country nearer and nearer to this level 
is the great endeavor of those who are intelligently en- 
gaged in the educational work. 

B. A. Hinsdale. 



All learning is self-teaching. It is in the working of 
the pupil's own mind that his progress in knowledge 
depends. The great business of the master is to teach 
the pupil to teach himself. anonvmous. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 1 15 

SELF-EDUCATED MEN. 

We hear much said about self-educated men, and a 
broad distinction is made between them and others ; but 
the truth is, that every man who is educated at all is, 
and must be, self-educated. 

There are no more two methods in which the mind 
can make progress, than there are two methods in which 
plants can grow. One seed may be blown by the winds, 
and cast upon the southern, or perchance on the north- 
ern side of some distant hill, and may there germinate, 
and take root, and do battle alone with the elements, 
and it may be so favored by the soil and climate that it 
shall lift itself in surpassing strength and beauty ; an- 
other may be planted carefully in a good soil^ and the 
hand of tillage may be applied to it, yet must this also 
draw for itself nutriment from the soil, and for itself 
withstand the rush of the tempest, and lift its head on 
high only as it strikes its roots deep in the earth. It is 
for the want of understanding this properly, that extrav- 
agant expectations are entertained of instructors and of 
institutions ; and that those who go to college some- 
times expect, and the community expect, that they will 
be learned, of course, — as if they could be inoculated 
with knowledge, or obtain it by absorption. This broad 
distinction between self-educated men and others has 
done harm ; for young men will not set themselves effi- 
ciently at work until they feel that there is an all-impor- 
tant part which they must perfect for themselves, and 
which no one can do for them. 

Mark Hopkins, 



Il6 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

A DRAUGHT OF NECTAR. 

Suppose a person to have studied Xenophon and 
Thucydides, till he has attained to the same thorough 
comprehension of them both ; and this is so far from 
being an unwarrantable supposition that the very diffi- 
culties of Thucydides tempt and stimulate an intelligent 
reader to form a more intimate acquaintance with him : 
which of the two will have strengthened the student's 
mind the most ? From which will he have derived the 
richest and most lasting treasures of thought ? Who 
that has made friends with Dante, has not had his in- 
tellect nerved and expanded by following the pilgrim 
through his triple world ? and would Tasso have done 
as much for him ? The labor itself, which must, be spent 
in order to understand Sophocles or Shakespeare, to 
search out their hidden beauties, to trace their labyrin- 
thine movements, to dive into their bright, jewelled cav- 
erns, and converse with the sea-nymphs that dwell there, 
is its own abundant reward ; not merely from the enjoy- 
ment that accompanies it, but because such pleasure 
— indeed, all pleasure that is congenial to our better 
nature — is refreshing and invigorating, like a draught 
of nectar from heaven. In such studies we imitate the 
example of the eagle, unsealing his eyesight by gazing 
at the sun, 

J. C. Hare. 

THE FINEST OF THE FINE ARTS. 

Still another of the silent but formative agencies in 
education is that combination of physical signs and mo- 
tions which we designate in the aggregate as manners. 
Some one has said : " A beautiful form is better than a 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



117 



beautiful face ; but beautiful behavior is better than a 
beautiful form. It is the finest of the fine arts. It abol- 
ishes all considerations of magnitude, and equals the 
majesty of the world." A treatise that should philo- 
sophically exhibit the relative proportion of text-books 
and mere manners, in their effects on the whole being 
of a pupil, would probably offer matter for surprise and 
for use. It was said that an experienced observer could 
tell, in Parliament, of a morning, which way the minis- 
terial wind blew, by noticing how Sir Robert Peel threw 
open the collar of his coat. Manners are a compound 
of form and spirit — spirit acted into form. The reason 
that the manner is so often spiritless and unmeaning is, 
that the person does not contain mind enough to inform 
and carry off the body. There is a struggle between 
the liberty of the heart and the resistance of the ma- 
chine, resulting in awkwardness whenever the latter gets 
the advantage. The reason a person's manner is formal 
is, that his sluggish imitation of what he has seen, or 
else a false and selfish ambition, comes in between his 
nature and his action, to disturb the harmony and over- 
bear a real grace with a vicious ornament. The young, 
quite as readily as the old, detect a sensible and kind 
and high-hearted nature, or its opposite, through this 
visible system of characters, but they draw their conclu- 
sion without knowing any such process, as unconsciously 
as the manner itself is worn. The effect takes place 
both on the intellectual faculties and the affections ; for 
very fine manners are able to quicken and sharpen the 
play of thought, making conversation more brilliant be- 
cause the conceptions are livelier. D'Aguesseau says 
of Fenelon, that the charm of his manner, and a certain 



Il8 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

indescribable expression, made his hearers fancy that 
instead of mastering the sciences he discoursed upon, 
he had invented them. 

Manners also react upon the mind that produces 
them, just as they themselves are reacted upon by the 
dress in which they appear. It used to be a saying 
among the old-school gentlemen and ladies, that a 
courtly bow could not be made without a handsome 
stocking and slipper. Then there is a connection 
more sacred still between the manners and the affec- 
tions. They act magically upon the springs of feeling. 
They teach us love and hate, indifference and zeal. 
They are the ever-present sculpture-gallery. The spi- 
nal cord is a telegraphic wire with a hundred ends. But 
whoever imagines legitimate manners can be taken up 
and laid aside, put on and off, for the moment, has 
missed their deepest law. 

Doubtless there are artificial manners, but only in 
artificial persons. A French dancing-master, a Mon- 
sieur Turveydrop, can manufacture a deportment for 
you, and you can wear it, but not till your mind has 
condescended to the Turveydrop level, and then the 
deportment only faithfully indicates the character again. 
A noble and attractive every-day bearing comes of good- 
ness, of sincerity, of refinement. And these are bred 
in years, not moments. The principle that rules your 
life is the sure posture-master. 

Frederic D. Huntington. 



What a man has learned is of importance, but what 
he is, what he can do, what he will become, are more 
significant things. 



Arthur Helps. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. ng 



A LIBERAL EDUCATION. 

That man, I think, has had a liberal education who 
has been so trained in youth, that his body is the ready 
servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all 
the work that as a mechanism it is capable of ; whose 
intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts 
of equal strength, and in smooth working order, ready 
like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of 
work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the 
anchors of the mind ; whose mind is stored with a 
knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of 
nature, and of the laws of her operations ; and who, 
no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose 
passions are trained to come to heal by a vigorous will, 
the servant of a tender conscience ; who has learned to 
love all beauty whether of nature or of art, to hate all 
vileness, and to respect others as himself. 

Thomas H. Huxley. 



Our whole life is an education ; we are ever learning ; 
every moment of time, everywhere, under all circum- 
stances, something is being added to the stock of our 
previous attainments. 



Paxton Hood. 



RECONSTRUCTIVE POWER. 

It has been often said of the celebrated naturalist, 
Cuvier, with an expression of wonder akin to our amuse- 
ment at the exploits of a magician, that, if a single bone 
of- a fossil was presented to him, he would from that 



I20 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

reconstruct a picture of the entire animal. This recon- 
structive power is a high accompHshment, and is not 
confined to the production of megatheriums, mastodons, 
and other monsters, which, by reversing the prophetic 
telescope, science beholds wandering about on the earth. 
This faculty is also employed by the archaeologist, by 
the critic of ancient writings, sacred or profane. What 
an eloquent teacher to an acute numismatist is an old 
coin, or to an antiquarian is an inscription in an un- 
known tongue ! The analytic power has been tasked 
to the utmost to decipher the fragmentary lore of anti- 
quity. And though enthusiasts may have been de- 
ceived, sometimes intentionally, by "modern instances " 
clothed in artificial moss, yet the true exploits of the 
human mind in this direction, challenge our highest 
admiration. 

This mental faculty, requiring as it does acuteness of 
perception and comprehensiveness of generalization, 
may be exercised on modern things, and enables its 
possessor not only to reproduce the past, but also more 
fully to understand the present, and to provide both 
things for the future. 

This faculty ought to be directly trained and exer- 
cised in our schools, in a series of studies which would 
naturally follow object-lessons. The pupil should be 
trained not only to describe the actual, with the object 
before him, but also to project the actual, past, present, 
or future, with only imperfect fragments of the sugges- 
tive objects before him. He should be taught to be a 
creator as well as an observer, for only he who can 
create is competent to control. 

E. O. Haven. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 12 1 

STUDY OF PRINCIPLES. 
If a child can ask questions such as would puzzle a 
philosopher, let us remember that the greatest philoso- 
pher can say things such as the simplest child could 
understand. In very truth, the philosopher is sadly 
wanted in our schoolrooms. The better arrangement, 
the enlightenment of facts, is wanted. To be sure, the 
pupil will not comprehend at once the full force and 
excellence of any principles given him ; but the bare 
facts with which he is now fed, — does he realize them 
at once } At all events, whatever prominence you may 
concede to principles, the instruction ought always- to 
be based on principles which will, in process of time, 
unveil themselves to him. Like the loveless old hag, 
in the old story, who, when the knight in obedience to 
his promise has, amid the mingled scorn and pity of his 
fellows, married her, turns out of a sudden an exquisite 
beauty, so the lessons of one's boyhood, however dull 
and dreary at the time, ought at last to be found the 
containers of what is true and beautiful. They ought 
at last to be recoo^nized as the harmonious limbs of a 
well-formed, soul-inspired body. Are they so recog- 
nized } Or are they found a sorry collection of odd 
members, many a one of them misshapen and distorted, 
that could never have been compacted harmoniously to- 
gether, with a spirit to rule and glorify them t Such 
are facts when they are not connected with principles. 

J. W. Hales. 

The intellectual faculty is a goodly field capable of 
great improvement, and it is the worst husbandry in the 
world to sow it with trifles or impertinences. 

Sir Matthew Hale. 



122 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



INTELLECTUAL LIVING. 



The essence of intellectual living does not reside in 
extent of science or in perfection of expression, but in a 
constant preference for higher thoughts over lower 
thoughts, and this preference may be the habit of a 
mind which has not any very considerable amount of 
information. This may be very easily demonstrated by 
a reference to men who lived intellectually in ages when 
science had scarcely begun to exist, and when there was 
but little literature that could be of use as an aid to cul- 
ture. The humblest subscriber to a mechanic's institute 
has easier access to sound learning than had either Solo- 
mon or Aristotle, yet both Solomon and Aristotle lived 
the intellectual life. Whoever reads English is richer in 
the aids to culture than Plato was, yet Plato thought in- 
tellectually. It is not erudition that makes the intellec- 
tual man, but a sort of virtue which delights in vigorous 
and beautiful conduct. Intellectual living is not so 
much an accomplishment as a state or condition of the 
mind in which it seeks earnestly for the highest and 
purest truth. It is the continual exercise of a firmly 
noble choice between the larger truth and the lesser, 
between that which is perfectly just and that which falls 
a little short of justice. The ideal life would be to 
choose thus firmly and delicately always ; yet if we 
often blunder and fail for want of perfect wisdom and 
clear light, have we not the inward assurance that our 
aspiration has been not all in vain, that it has brought 
us a little nearer to the Supreme Intellect v/hose efful- 
gence draws us whilst it dazzles } Here is the true 
secret of that fascination which belongs to intellectual 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



123 



pursuits, that they reveal to us a little more, and yet a 
little more, of the eternal order of the Universe, estab- 
lishing us so firmly in what is known, that we acquire 
an unshakable confidence in the laws which govern 
what is not, and never can be known. 

Philip Gilbert Hamerton. 



Educate towards a knowledge of truth, a love of 
the beautiful, a habit of doing the good, because only 
through these forms can the self-activity continue to 
develop progressively in this universe. 



Wm. T. Harris. 



THE CLASSICS A DELIGHT. 

The error committed in our colleges, of making 
Latin and Greek compulsory, and, therefore, unattrac- 
tive, should not make us forget that this is, after all, an 
error in the direction of high culture, and one more par- 
donable in America than anywhere else. These lan- 
guages are a perpetual protest against the strong 
tendency to make all American education hasty and 
superficial. They stand for a learning which makes 
no money, but helps to make men. Astronomy, 
metaphysics, the higher mathematics, and the criti- 
cal or literary study of the modern languages, have 
the same advantage ; but the Latin and Greek tongues 
represent this culture best, for they remain still syn- 
onymous with accurate linguistic training, and with 
the study of form in literature. Compared with these, 
all modern languages are undeniably loose in structure, 
deficient in models, and destitute of the apparatus of 
critical study. It is certainly unfortunate that it is so ; 



124 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



but there is the fact. The modern languages must be 
completely transformed in structure, literary models, 
text-books, and mode of teaching, before they can be 
used in education as we now use the Latin and Greek. 
I know of no institution in America in which it is even 
attempted thus to use them ; none where they are yet 
taught except as accomplishments. Nor is it apparent 
how they could be otherwise taught with the ordinary 
instrumentalities. A man may speak a dozen dialects 
as fluently as a European courier, and yet know as little 
as the courier knows of the principles of language. On 
the other hand, it is impossible for any boy to have 
faithfully learned the simplest manual of Latin or Greek 
grammar without having laid some foundation for sys- 
tematic philology. 

And as for the literary value of these languages, I 
will go still further, and with especial reference to that 
which there is most disposition to banish from use — 
the Greek. It certainly is not a hasty or boyish judg- 
ment on my part, nor yet one in which pedantry or 
servility can have much to do, when I deliberately avow 
the belief that the Greek literature is still so entirely 
unequalled among the accumulated memorials of the 
world, that it seems to differ from all others in kind 
rather than in degree. In writing this I am thinking 
less of Plato than of Homer, and not more of Homer 
than of the dramatic and lyric poets. So far from the 
knowledge of other literatures tending to depreciate 
the Greek, it seems to me that no one can adequately 
value this who has not come back to it after long study 
of the others. Ampere, that master of French prose, 
has hardly overstated the truth when he says that the 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



125 



man best versed in all other books must say, after all, 
in returning to a volume of Homer or Sophocles, '' Here 
is beauty true and sovereign ; its like was never written 
among men — Voila la beaute veritable et souveraine ; 
jamais il ne s'est ecrit rien de pareil chez les hommes." 
I do not see how there could possibly be a list of the 
dozen masterpieces of the world's literature of which 
at least one-half should not be Greek. And, indeed, 
when one considers the mere vehicle, the language 
itself, one must remember that there is no more pos- 
sibility of arbitrary choice in languages than in stones ; 
the best is the best ; and Greek, the native tongue of 
sculptors, is the only tongue that has the texture of 

marble. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. 



Notions may be imported by books from abroad ; 
ideas must be grown at home by thought. 

J. C. Hare. 



HOW I WAS EDUCATED. 

But the good of a college is not in the things which 
it teaches. I believe the '' New Education " thinks it is; 
but that is the mistake of the New Education. The 
good of a college is to be had from "the fellows " who 
are there, and your associations with them. With a 
small circle of admirable friends of whom this world 
is by no means worthy, and in a less degree in the 
various clubs, — even in the much-abused debating soci- 
eties, — I picked up a set of habits and facilities for 
doing things one has to do, for which I am very grate- 
ful to Harvard College. I disliked the drudgery of 



126 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

college life through and through. I counted the days 
to the next vacation from the beginning of every term ; 
and there were then, alas ! three terms in every year. 
But, none the less, I ought to say that I do not believe 
that any life outside of a college has yet been found 
that will in general do so rduch for a man in helping 
him for this business of living. I could get more infor- 
mation out of *' Chamber's Encyclopaedia," which you 
can buy for ten dollars, than any man will acquire, as 
facts, by spending four years in any college. But the 
business of changing a boy into a man, or, if you 
please, changing an unlicked cub into a well-trained 
gentleman, is, on the whole, more simply and certainly 
done in a good college than anywhere else. So, as 
Nestor says, "it seems to me." 

Edward Everett Hale. 



A LOFTY AIM. 

I KNOW that shortcomings in education, as in all else, 
are more easily seen than avoided. I know, too, in 
some degree, the value even of simple human passion 
and inclination as whip and spur to our natural indo- 
lence. But I feel above all else that educators in 
America are bound to concert their plans and increase 
their efforts in order to uphold a scheme of education 
worthy of the children of a great democratic republic. 
Their first object should be to present to the young per- 
sons under their charge a view of life so just and ade- 
quate that these, passing from the bounds of tutelage, 
shall know where and how to seek the real honor, the 
steadfast good, the abiding triumph of the just. 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



127 



THE EDUCATOR^S RESPONSIBILITY. 

I WILL not believe that the life of nations is like the 
life of trees ; that by an inevitable law they, too, have 
their periods of growth, maturity, and decline. But I 
hold that it is sin alone that makes a people weak, and 
wickedness that makes them old, and that in the fear of 
God and the keeping of his commandments there is 
perpetual youth. Upon us, and those who are to come 
after us ; upon the young especially, who are ever the 
patriot's hope and the good man's trust; and upon those 
to whom the training of the young is entrusted, whether 
as parents or teachers, does this great responsibility 
rest. 

George S. Hillard. 



Those who take honors in nature's university, who 
learn the laws which govern men and things and obey 
them, are the really great and successful men in this 
world. 

Thomas H. Huxley. 



WE WORK FOR CULTURE. 

Whatever you study, some one will consider that 
particular study a foolish waste of time. 

If you were to abandon successively every subject of 
intellectual labor which had, in its turn, been condemned 
by some adviser as useless, the result would be simple 
intellectual nakedness. The classical languages, to be- 
gin with, have long been considered useless by the 
majority of practical people — and pray, what to shop- 
keepers, doctors, attorneys, artists, can be the use of 



128 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

the higher mathematics ? And if these studies, which 
have been conventionally classed as serious studies, are 
considered unnecessary notwithstanding the tremendous 
authority of custom, how much the more are those 
studies exposed to a like contempt which belong to the 
category of accomplishments. What is the use of draw- 
ing, for it ends in a worthless sketch ? Why should we 
study^music when after wasting a thousand hours the 
amateur cannot satisfy the ear ? A qjioi bon modern 
languages when the accomplishment only enables us to 
call a waiter in French or German who is sure to an- 
swer us in English ? And what, when it is not your 
trade, can be the good of dissecting plants or animals ? 
To all questionings of this kind there is but one reply. 
We work for culture. We work to enlarge the intelli- 
gence, and to make it a better and more effective instru- 
ment. This is our main purpose ; but it may be added 
that even for special labors it is always difficult to say 
beforehand exactly what will turn out in the end to be 
most useful. What, in appearance, can be more emi- 
nently outside the work of a landscape painter than the 
study of ancient history .'' And yet I can show you how 
an interest in ancient history might indirectly be of 
great service to a landscape painter. It would make 
him profoundly feel the human associations of many 
localities which to an ignorant man would be devoid of 
interest or meaning ; and this human interest in the 
scenes where great events have taken place, or which 
have been distinguished by the habitation of illustrious 
men in other ages, is in fact one of the great funda- 
mental motives of landscape painting. It has been very 
much questioned, especially by foreign critics, whether 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 1 29 

the interest in botany which is taken by some of the 
more cultivated English landscape painters is not for 
them a false direction and wrong employment of the 
mind ; but a landscape painter may feel his interest in 
vegetation infinitely increased by the accurate knowl- 
edge of its laws, and such an increase of interest would 
make him work more zealously, and with less danger of 
weariness and e7imd, besides being a very useful help to 
the memory in retaining the authentic vegetable forms. 
It may seem more difficult to show the possibility of a 
study apparently so entirely outside of other studies as 
music is ; and yet music has an important influence on 
the whole of our emotional nature, and indirectly upon 
expression of all kinds. He who has once learned the 
self-control of the musician, the use of piano and forte, 
each in its right place, when to be lightly swift or ma- 
jestically slow, and especially how to keep to the key 
once chosen until the right time has come for changing 
it ; he who has once learned this knows the secret of 
the arts. No painter, writer, orator, who had the power 
and judgment of a thoroughly cultivated musician, could 
sin against the broad principles of taste. 

Philip Gilbert Hamerton. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 

Modern civilization rests upon physical science ; take 
away her gifts to our own country, and our position 
among the leading nations of the world is gone to-mor- 
row ; for it is physical science only that makes intelli- 
gence and moral energy stronger than brute force. 

Physical science, its methods, its problems, and its 



I30 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



difficulties, will meet the poorest boy at every turn, and 
yet we educate him in such a manner that he shall enter 
the world as ignorant of the existence of the methods 
and facts of science as the day he was born. The mod- 
ern world is full of artillery ; and we turn out our chil- 
dren to do battle in it, equipped with the shield and 
sword of the gladiator. It is my firm conviction that 
the only way to remedy it is to make the elements of 
physical science an integral part of primary education. 
I have endeavored to show you how that may be done 
for that branch of science which it is my business to 
pursue ; and I can but add, that I should look upon the 
day when every schoolmaster throughout the land was 
a centre of genuine, however rudimentary, scientific 
knowledge, as an epoch in the history of the country. 

Thomas H. Huxley. 



ON READING WISELY. 

To stuff our minds with what is simply trivial, simply 
curious, or that which at best has but a low nutritive 
power, this is to close our minds to what is solid and 
enlarging and spiritually sustaining. ... I think the 
habit of reading wisely is one of the most difficult habits 
to acquire, needing strong resolution and infinite pains ; 
and I hold the habit of reading for mere reading's sake, 
instead of for the sake of the stuff we gain from read- 
ing, to be one of the worst and commonest and most 
unwholesome habits we have. Why do we still suffer the 
traditional hypocrisy about the dignity of literature, — 
literature, I mean, in the gross, which includes about 
equal parts of what is useful and what is useless } Why 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 131 

are books as books, writers as writers, readers as read- 
ers, meritorious and honorable, apart from any good in 
them, or anything that we can get from them ? Why 
do we pride ourselves on our powers of absorbing print, 
as our grandfathers did on their gifts in absorbing port, 
when we know that there is a mode of absorbing print 
which makes it impossible we can ever learn anything 
good out of books ? Our stately Milton said, in a passage 
which is one of the watchwords of the English race, 
*' As good almost kill a man as kill a good book." But 
has he not also said that he would " have a vigilant eye 
how books demean themselves as well as men, and do 
sharpest justice on them as malefactors " ? Yes ! They 
do kill the good book who deliver up their few and pre- 
cious hours of reading to the trivial book ; they make it 
dead for them ; they do what lies in them to destroy 
*Hhe precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed 
and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life" ; they 
"spill that seasoned life of man preserved and stored 
up in books." For in the wilderness of books most 
men, certainly all busy men, must strictly choose. If 
they saturate their minds with the idler books, the 
"good book," which Milton calls "an immortality rather 
than a life," is dead to them : it is a book sealed up and 
buried. 

Frederick Harrison. 



THE SCHOOL IN HISTORY. 

The school is not one of the cardinal institutions of 
civilization, but is a supplementary special institution 
designed to re-enforce one or more of the cardinal insti- 
tutions in their educative functions. Thus, in China it 



132 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

has supplemented the functions of a patriarchal state by 
preparing officials for the civil service ; in Persia it 
fitted youth for military service ; in India it perpetu- 
ated the rule of the Brahmin caste, or the Hindoo 
church ; in Judea it supplemented the family and the 
theocratic rule ; in Athens, during the time of the 
Sophists, it educated youth for politics or for influence 
in a democratic state ; while in Sparta it educated for 
military and civil functions necessary to a rigid aristoc- 
racy, whose constitution required the enslavement of a 
conquered race. The pedagogy common to all Greek 
states trained the bodily form through the pentathlon 
into gracefulness and strength, so as to express the 
highest idea of the Greek religion ; namely, the belief 
that the gods were beautiful forms, and that man could 
become divine through beauty. In Phoenicia the school 
education fitted youth for manufactures and commerce, 
teaching him writing and arithmetic, and morally dis- 
ciplining him to despise home, and love daring adven- 
tures in distant voyages. 

In more modern states we find school education 
accented by the predominant institutions. In early 
Protestantism the reading of the Bible and religious 
psalmody was most essential, because the chief idea of 
the Reformation was the substitution of private judg- 
ment, -enlightened by reading of divine revelation, in 
the place of the authority of a hierarchy. Jesuit in- 
struction, on the other hand, established to counteract 
the influence of Protestant schools, laid the greatest 
stress on supervision and espionage, on casuistry and 
the art of defending the dogma against all attacks, and 
on unquestioning obedience to authority. The more re- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 1 33 

cent forms of school education are more comprehensive, 
and emphasize far more the preparation for civil society, 
or for what is useful to the individual career of the citi- 
zen, as well as what fits him for the development of his 
common human nature. 

Wm. T. Harris. 



The mind is like a trunk. If well packed, it holds 
almost everything ; if ill packed, next to nothing. 

J. C. Hare. 



TRAINED TEACHERS. 

By law, every teacher and every assistant-teacher in 
the common schools of Austria-Hungary must obtain a 
certificate of qualification at the teachers' seminary. A 
similar law prevails in France, Germany, and most of 
the European countries ; and yet the United States, 
which expends more money on public education than 
any three of these monarchies united, permits tens of 
thousands of teachers to teach in the common schools, 
with no better certificates than the licenses of county 
commissioners or country superintendents who may 
never have taught a day in their lives, and who are just 
as qualified to issue a certificate to a man to navigate a 
ship as to teach a school. This is all wrong. 

It becomes the duty of all teachers, of all patriots, of 
all educated men, and particularly of the college profes- 
sors, who are, as a rule, men of learning, to use every 
effort to spread the normal system, and to compel every 
teacher in the common schools to obtain a certificate of 
qualification from a normal school. Then, and not till 



134 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



then, the United States will show the best and most 
effective system of public schools in the world ; and the 
people will receive a full return for all the money ex- 
pended. 



Thomas Hunter. 



Each man is a drama in himself ; has to play all the 
parts in it ; is to be king and rebel, successful and van- 
quished, free and slave ; and needs a bringing up fit for 
the universal creature that he is. 

Arthur Helps. 



CHRISTIANITY AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

All we have to do is for Catholics and Protestants — 
disciples of a common master — to come to a common 
understanding with respect to a common basis of what 
is received as general Christianity, a practical quantity 
of truth belonging equally to both sides to be recog- 
nized in general legislation, and especially in the litera- 
ture and teaching of our public schools. The difificul- 
ties lie in the mutual ignorance and prejudice of both 
parties, and fully as much on the side of the Protes- 
tants as of the Catholics. Then let the system of 
public schools be confined to the branches of simply 
common-school education. Let these common schools 
be kept under the local control of the inhabitants of 
each district, so that the religious character of each 
school may conform in all variable accidents to the 
character of the majority of the inhabitants of each 
district. Let all centralizing tendencies be watchfully 
guarded against. Let the Christians of the East, of all 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 



135 



denominations, increase the number and extend the 
efficiency of all their Christian academies and higher 
colleges. And let the Christians of the vast West pre- 
occupy the ground, and bend all their energies in their 
efforts to supply the rising floods of their incoming 
population with a full apparatus of high schools and 
colleges, to meet all possible demands for a higher edu- 
cation. One thing is absolutely certain : Christianity 
is ever increasing in power, and, in the long run, will 
never tolerate the absurd and aggressive claims of mod- 
ern infidelity. The system of public schools must be 
held in their sphere, true to the claims of Christianity, 
or they must go, with all other enemies of Christ, to 
the wall. 

Archibald Alexander Hodge. 



THE MAN, NOT THE MIND. 

No system of education is complete till it concerns 
itself for the entire body and all the parts of human 
life — a character high, erect, broad-shouldered, sym- 
metrical, swift ; not the mind, as I said, but the man. 
Our familiar phrase, "whole-souled," expresses the aim 
of learning as well as any. You want to rear men fit 
and ready for all spots and crises, prompt and busy in 
affairs, gentle among little children, self-reliant in dan- 
ger, genial in company, sharp in a jury-box, tenacious 
at a town-meeting, unseducible in a crowd, tender at a 
sick-bed, not likely to jump into the first boat at a ship- 
wreck, affectionate and respectable at home, obliging in 
a travelling party, shrewd and just in the market, rever- 
ent and punctual at the church ; not going about, as 



136 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

Robert Hall said, '' with an air of perpetual apology for 
the unpardonable presumption of being in the world," 
nor yet forever supplicating the world's special consid- 
eration ; brave in action, patient in suffering, believing 
and cheerful everywhere, fervent in spirit, serving the 
Lord. This is the manhood that our age and country 
are asking of its educators, — well-built and vital, mani- 
fold and harmonious, full of wisdom, full of energy, -full 
of faith. 

Frederic D. Huntington. 



ENGLISH LETTERS. 

It is patent to every careful observer of educational 
progress in modern times that new interest is con- 
stantly awakening in all that pertains to the English 
language and literature, nor is it possible or necessary 
to state in which of these two sections of the same gen- 
eral department such interest is the more pronounced. 
While as to English philology the student's attention is 
directed to the rapid increase of books and appliances, 
careful inspection will mark a similar enthusiasm in 
distinctively literary work. This healthful zeal is seen 
in all the branches of such work ; in history, fiction, 
biography, in descriptive, philosophical, and miscella- 
neous prose, and in poetry. One of the special features 
of this modern development is found in the large vari- 
ety of suggestion that is given relative to the best 
methods in which such a study may be conducted, how 
the academic student or the citizen at large can best 
secure those helpful results which are supposed to fol- 
low from diligent attention thereto. Such volumes as 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



137 



the *' English Men of Letters " series, edited by Mor- 
ley, or the " American Men of Letters " series, edited 
by Warner, are of this special character. They are 
admirably designed, on the one hand, to give a suffi- 
ciently scholarly view of English and American letters 
to satisfy the critical student, and, on the other, so to 
simplify and vary the subject discussed as to bring it 
within the province of the readable and popular. Much 
of the profit and pleasure arising from such a form of 
intellectual pursuit depends on the particular form of 
procedure. No department has suffered more than that 
of English letters, both from the absence of any definite 
method, and from the application of superficial meth- 
ods. In no department is a well-adjusted order of 
study more desirable and feasible. 



T. W. Hunt. 



Every accession man makes to his knowledge en- 
larges his power. 



Paxton Hood. 



TRUE INTELLECTUAL GROWTH. 

Assuredly the true way of intellectual growth is by 
fencing in some moderate and inviting portion of the 
general domain, and then to have the mind stay and 
converse there long enough to become really and 
thoroughly at home with the included matter, and to 
get a genuine and lasting relish of the mental climate in 
its special and peculiar qualities. This, say what you 
will, is the right method of domesticating the principles 
of truth and nature in the heart, of binding them up 



138 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

with the inward quiet sympathies and affections, so 
that they shall be an abiding love and delight, a peren- 
nial spring of life and joy; and when this is done in a 
small sphere, the mind is then invested with a predis- 
position to recognize and choose the true and the good 
wherever it may go ; and in that state the more it con- 
verses with general knowledge the less it will be blown 
by presumption and conceit ; whereas, an early and 
ambitious smattering in many things is pretty sure to 
bring on that sort of chronic indigestion which converts 
nourishment to wind, 

Henry N. Hudson. 



THE STUDY OF GEOMETRY. 

It is said that Plato wrote over his schoolroom door, 
"Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here." And 
although the anecdote cannot be found in good Greek, 
and is, therefore, to be considered rather mythical, it 
deserves to have been true. It is the inscription which 
is in fact written over all the higher schools of life. 
Geometry is required for admission into the high schools 
of nature, and is always taught in nature's infant school. 
It has been sadly neglected by human teachers since 
the invention of logarithms and other facilities for arith- 
metical computation ; but it has remained the founda- 
tion of learning, and no man has ever arrived at any 
knowledge, until he first learned from Nature herself, 
unconsciously perhaps, geometry enough to build it 
upon. ... 

I would also urge the study of geometry as a source 
of the purest pleasure. No intellectual resource that 
we can give our pupils will be to them a more unfailing 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



139 



spring of delight than the habit of analyzing forms. 
More than any other intellectual habit, it will blend 
itself naturally with every holy and reverent view of 
outward creation as the work of a Divine hand. While 
arithmetical power is rarely employed, except in ac- 
tual computations for temporary ends, geometrical 
power is in constant exercise, in every contemplation of 
the world around us. As I walked yesterday morning 
down the banks of the Kennebec, what was it that 
, thrilled my frame with such ever-varying delight } 
Not merely the refreshing air which breathed upon my 
cheek ; not merely the fragrance which it brought from 
the field and forest ; nor yet the cheerful sounds of ani- 
mate life and of human labor ; nor the various play of light 
and shade and coloring upon the landscape ; — more 
than all these, it was the perception of beautiful forms 
that charmed me ; the forms of flowers beneath my feet ; 
the arrangement of leaves about the stems of plants, in 
a symmetry hidden save to a geometrical eye ; the un- 
dulation of the land ; the configuration of the shores ; 
the grouping of the trees, and outlines of the forest ; the 
ripple on the river ; the dancing curves of light at the 
bottom of the clear water ; the varying forms of clouds 
in the sky above me ; it was through these various forms 
that the infinite beauty of the work of God was chiefly 
revealing itself, and filling me with that exhilaration of 
faith and indefinable joy. 

Thomas Hill. 



VOCAL MUSIC IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

To teach a proper use of the voice, and give pupils 
command of their musical powers until they acquire the 



140 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



ability to sing any composition of vocal music at sight, 
should be the aim and object of all instruction in music 
in public schools. Everything necessary to enable the 
pupils to do this intelligently should be taught, and 
whatever is not necessary should be left out until this 
ability is acquired. The great influence of music, mor- 
ally, mentally, and physically, will not be fully realized 
until the time now wasted over the dry mathematics of 
the notation and theory is spent in keeping constantly 
before the mind by practice the essential things to be 
known, together with their true representations. 

H. E. Holt. 

SCIENTIFIC RUTS. 

The investigator of the present seeks his salvation, as 
a rule, in devotion to one science, nay, often to only a 
part of one science. He looks neither to the right nor 
to the left, in order that what is going on in his neigh- 
bor's field may not prevent him from burying himself in 
his specialty to his heart's content. We are far from 
failing to recognize the great value of this absorption to 
the progress of science ; indeed, the unexampled expan- 
sion of science would hardly be possible without the 
self-restraint which the investigator exercises, for the 
most part of his own free choice, in limiting the field of 
his work. But it gives rise also to serious alarm. Too 
exclusive occupation with details obscures our view of 
the great whole, the understanding of which is the final 
goal of all our efforts. 

" Denn nur der grosse Gegenstand vermag 
Den tiefen grund der Menscheit aufzuregen. 
Im engen Kreis verengert sich der Sinn." 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



141 



And especially in view of the unmistakable tendency 
of our times, the disposition to combine and specialize 
all effort, any stimulus to intercourse with workers in 
other fields of study which prompts us to open our eyes 
to a wider prospect seems doubly desirable. Ceteris 
paribus he whose scientific work is furthest from that of 
the mere mechanic will be sure of the greatest success. 
But he who isolates himself in his work, or who main- 
tains intercourse only with his immediate companions 
in his own department, is peculiarly exposed to the dan- 
ger of falling into such petty mechanical labor. 

August Wilhelm Hofmann. 



Prosperity is a great teacher ; adversity is a greater. 
Possession pampers the mind ; privation trains and 
strengthens it. 



William Hazlitt. 



Any one who has been educated much in appearance, 
and lacks capacity, however good his other qualities, 
cannot be on good terms with himself. 



Friedrich Jacobi. 



EDUCATION A BIRTHRIGHT. 

In education, the past century has witnessed a prog- 
ress which fully keeps pace with its other great move- 
ments. The grand idea of universal education is the 
creation of this age. Before, the privilege of the few, in 
this century education has come to be regarded as the 
right and the duty of all. The great movements for 
popular education — the Sunday-school and the free 
school — are born of this age. The church and the state 



142 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



have alike learned to recognize education as the birth- 
right of their children, as well as the foundation of their 
own safety. The recognition of this principle, accom- 
panied by the great national movements for popular 
education, is perhaps the most significant of all the 
features which mark this age, in a sense far deeper than 
any mere form of government, as the age of democracy, 
in which everywhere the people are recognized as the 
supreme power in the state, and the welfare of the peo- 
ple as the chief end of all government. . For with this 
recognition of their power comes the necessity for their 
education, if on no higher ground, at least as a safeguard 
against their ignorance. 

Edward S. Joynes. 



MIND, NOT MATTER. 

The truth is, that the knowledge of external nature, 
and the sciences which that knowledge requires or 
includes, are not the great or the frequent business of 
the human mind. Whether we provide for action or for 
conversation, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, 
the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge 
of right and wrong ; the next is an acquaintance with 
the history of mankind, and with those examples which 
may be said to embody truth and prove by events the 
reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and justice are 
excellences of all times and of all places ; we are perpet- 
ually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. 
Our intercourse with intellect, not nature, is necessary ; 
our speculations upon matters are voluntary and at 
leisure. Physiological learning is of such emergence 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



143 



that one may know another half his life without being 
able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astronomy ; 
but his moral and prudential character immediately 
appears. Those authors, therefore, are to be read at 
schools that supply most axioms of prudence, most prin- 
ciples of moral truth, and most materials for conversa- 
tion ; and these purposes are best served by poets, 
orators, and historians. 

Samuel Johnson. 

WORSHIPPING SELF-MADE MEN. 

The too prevalent worship of the self-made man, in 
this country, deplorable though it be, tempts the boy to 
despise, as his father possibly may, systematic higher 
education, and to try to carve out his own future with- 
out it. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred such a 
boy fails and speedily sinks to the bottom ; never reaches 
the fame of the great self-made man who was his ideal ; 
and is finally found on a level with men of whom thirteen 
do not even make a dozen. But the fact remains that 
it is a great temptation. College-bred men are too often 
quoted below par in this country. The river cannot rise 
higher than its source. Why should the boy think higher 
education necessary, or even desirable, when at the fire- 
side, in the press, from the pulpit or the lecture rostrum, 
on the stump, at the bar, — in fact, everywhere, — the 
fame of the self-made man is proclaimed. 

L. R. Klemm. 



It is pleasant to think that human nature will always 
be better and better developed by education, and that at 
last there will thus be given it the form which best 
befits it. 



144 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

Men who have nothing but memory are but living 
lexicons, and, as it were, the pack-horses of Parnassus. 

The best way to comprehend is to do. What we 
learn the most thoroughly is what we learn to some 
extent by ourselves. 

Immanuel Kant. 



SYSTEMATIC ARRANGEMENT. 

A MAN setting out upon a journey may, by carefully 
selecting only such articles as he will a.bsolutely require, 
save himself much after-trouble and inconvenience ; by 
careful packing, he may put all that he wishes to take 
with him into much smaller space than they would other- 
wise occupy, and by proper arrangement he may have 
each article so placed as that he can readily find it when 
wanted. Each of these has its counterpart in educa- 
tion. The subjects taught should be carefully selected 
according to their importance ; they should be regularly 
arranged according to their natural relations and connec- 
tions ; and they should be so disposed as to be readily 
available when required. 

David Kay. 



It is by pictures and music, by art and song and sym- 
bolic representations, that all nations have been educated 
in their adolescence. 

I HOLD that whatever natural rights a human being 
brings into the world with him at his birth, one right he 
indubitably brings ; namely, the right of education. 

The more you know the more you can save yourself 
and that which belongs to you, and do more work with 

less effort. Charles Kingsley. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 145 

A REASON disciplined to the clear perception of truth, 
a taste cultivated into an exquisite sense of beauty, a 
conscience delicately sensitive to right and virtue, will 
nearly realize our ideal of human excellence. 

A. C. Kendrick. 



SUBMISSION TO AUTHORITY. 

Obedience or submission to authority is one of the 
first and most important things in education ; and unless 
the child is taught, when young, to curb its desires, and 
to yield its will to that of another, it will be much more 
difficult, if not impossible, for it to submit to lawful 
authority, to reason and conscience, when it is older. 
He who has never been taught to submit to authority, 
who has never been trained to obey another, can be but 
little able to obey himself, to yield the lower to the 
higher principles of his nature, to exercise self-com- 
mand and self-control. It is not by self-will or self- 
assertion, or any form of self-development — develop- 
ment from within — that any one has ever become great, 
but only by being an humble and submissive learner at 
the feet of others and in the great school of the world. 
Further, it is a leading principle of our nature that our 
powers are called forth by opposition, our faculties de- 
veloped by antagonism ; and hence, when the motive 
powers within are deprived of those checks and restraints 
from without that serve to regulate and to strengthen 
them, they become weak and languid, or act irregularly, 
and the individual becomes dull and stupid, or impulsive 
and passionate. When those who have been over-in- 



146^ 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 



dulged in childhood and early years come out into the 
world, they find that they cannot get circumstances to 
bend to them as before ; and as they have never learnt 
how, when adverse, they are to be met and overcome, 
they are at a loss how to deal with them, and are 
readily brought to a standstill by opposition, or to have 
recourse to unsuitable or unworthy means to overcome 
them. A man can never have the full power of his 
faculties unless he have them" well under control, as 
there would be no force in steam if it were unrestrained 
and allowed to blow off spontaneously. 

David Kay. 



THEN HE IS EDUCATED. 

Taking into account both functions of education, we 
may say that, when a person has stored his mind with 
all serviceable materials, and cultivated his faculties to 
such an extent that he is able to make a vigorous use of 
the knowledge he possesses ; when his moral power has 
become so developed and experienced that he not only 
has a delicate appreciation of beauty, but his conscience 
gives its sanction to that which his intelligence dictates ; 
when his will has been strengthened to such a degree 
that he is enabled to act with decision, and bear with 
constancy the strain of difficulty and disappointment ; 
when he recognizes his relationship to a superior Being, 
and realizes that his every action may have an influence 
not only for time, but for eternity ; and lastly, when his 
mind has acquired such keen susceptibility to the beau- 
ties both of nature and of art, that it adds to his pleas- 
ures and softens his cares — then he is educated. 

Joseph Landon. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 



MEN GROWN, NOT MANUFACTURED. 



147 



It is difficult to say which is the more pernicious, 
that system which overstrains the active intelligence of 
the willing and ambitious boy, or that which fills his 
mind, while it is yet mainly passive with the results of 
mature thought, and endows him with a kind of minia- 
ture omniscience. Those who survive such methods of 
training may, doubtless, be very useful agents, very 
serviceable machines, but they will rarely initiate. With 
a few exceptions, their minds will be either exhausted 
or overlaid. That elasticity of spirit which enables a 
man always to rise to the level of the varying require- 
ments of the day and hour in the family and the state ; 
that free movement of will which is ever ready to 
encounter more than half way the vicissitudes and exi- 
gencies of life ; that vivacious intelligence which main- 
tains throughout life an unceasing love of knowledge ; 
that soundness of brain and muscle which reacts on the 
inner self by giving steadiness to moral purpose, will 
assuredly not be promoted by forcing more and more 
subjects into the school curriculum, and applying the 
pressure of constant examinations by outside authori- 
ties. We want men who will be ready for the crises of 
life as well as for its daily routine of duty, and who 
will, by their mere manner of encountering even their 
ordinary work, contribute to the advance of the common- 
wealth in vigor and virtue. Such men alone are fully 
competent for all the services which their country may 
demand from them. Such men may be slowly grown ; 
they cannot be manufactured under a system of pres- 
sure. 

S. S. Laurie. 



148 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

THE TOUCHSTONE OF REASON. 

" Try all things, hold fast that which is good," is a 
divine rule coming from the Father of light and truth ; 
and it is hard to know what other way men can come at 
truth to lay hold of it, if they do not dig and search for 
it as for gold and hid treasure ; but he that does so must 
have much earth and rubbish before he gets the pure 
metal ; sand and pebbles and dross usually lie blended 
with it ; but the gold is nevertheless gold, and will en- 
rich the man that employs his pains to seek and separate 
it. Neither is there any danger lest he should be de- 
ceived by the mixture. Every man carries about him a 
touchstone, if he will make use of it, to distinguish 
substantial gold from superficial glitterings, truth from 
appearances. And indeed the use and benefit of this 
touchstone, which is natural reason, is spoiled and lost 
only by assuming prejudices, overweening presumption, 
and narrowing our minds. 

John Locke. 



It is of some importance rightly to understand what 
principle really underlies the divine education of the 
human race, because we may be sure that such should 
be our rule in training and educating each individual 
member. 

Lessing. 



He that seeketh the depth of knowledge is, as it were, 
in a labyrinth, in the which ye farther he goeth, the 
farther he is from the end. 

John Lyly. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



149 



NEGLECT OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 

Among the things neglected till too late a period are 
the manners, the cultivation of the voice, — including 
singing, pronunciation, and all the characteristics of 
good reading ; gaining skill and expedition in the com- 
mon, necessary, mechanical operations, such as sewing, 
knitting, writing, and drawing, and acquiring by daily 
practice a knowledge and a love of domestic pursuits. 
To these might be added some things which depend 
almost entirely on the memory, such as spelling ; and 
others which are suited to lay the foundation of a liter- 
ary taste, such as a judicious course of reading, practice 
in composition, etc. Those who are to attend to instru- 
mental music, the ornamental branches, and the pronun- 
ciation of foreign languages, must commence early. 

Mary Lyon. 



GIRLS, AND QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 

Let our young girls be encouraged to acquaint them- 
selves with the great questions that engage the atten- 
tion of our government, and especially with those that 
are discussed in congresses, legislatures, and by the 
leading papers of the time. Let them know what are 
the social and educational movements of the day, and 
what is their bearing on the future of the nation. Great 
moral principles underlie them all. Talk with them 
about the sectional wrongs that should be righted, the 
great reforms that are battling with injustice, the needed 
legislation that is pending and slowly progressing. These 
matters can be made as interesting to them as Greek 
literature or Roman history, as fascinating as the ever- 



ISO 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 



lasting novel. Brief political monographs, terse, clear, 
and compact, are prepared by specialists and college 
professors for the instruction of our young legal voters. 
Let them enter into the studies of their sisters, who will 
find some knowledge of the great problems with which 
a nation wrestles, as powerful a tonic mentally as are 
physically the out-door games they share with their 
brothers. ^^^^ ^^ livekmore. 



THE OFFICE OF LETTERS. 

It is letters which open the intelligence to the light 
of reason and the heart to the impressions of senti- 
ment. They substitute morality for interest, give pu- 
pils polish, exercise their judgment, make them more 
sensitive and at the same time more obedient to the 
laws, more capable of grand virtues. 

Joseph Lakanal. 



EDUCATION DESIRES THE BEST. 

Education is equally solicitous that letters should be 
cultivated, and that the fields should be ploughed ; that all 
the sciences and the useful arts should be perfected ; 
that justice should be administered and that religion 
should be taught ; that there should be instructed and 
competent generals, magistrates, and ecclesiastics, and 
skilful artists and citizens, all in fit proportion. 

La Chalotais. 



EDUCATION A PERPETUAL PROCESS. 

The process of education, whether at home or in 
school, is perpetually going on; the instructor may 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



151 



guide, but cannot stop it. Whether he is attentive or 
neglectful, observation is at work, intellect is develop- 
ing, character is forming, and all under the most pow- 
erful influences from him, whether for good or evil. 
What he says earnestly, and, above all, what he does, is 
graving itself on the tenacious memory of childhood. 
His inconsistencies, partialities, ill-temper, tyranny, 
selfishness, leave lasting traces. If his dispositions 
are unfavorable, no check from without can remedy 
the evil. Parents can control him little. They are 
managed through their prejudices, at the expense of 
their children. A superior authority, with the most 
perfect machinery of inspection, will fail to get the 
work of good men performed by bad ones. Its laws 
will be no restraint on him to whom their execution is 
intrusted; its best systems fruitless, where they cannot 
insure states of mind according with their spirit. The 
government of children must be a despotism, and it 
must have all the vices of a despotism, if we cannot pur- 
ify the depositaries of supreme power. But, if the in- 
structor be one who is filled with a consciousness of his 
high duties, how mighty is his influence ! He is the 
fountain of instruction, and the prime source of enjoy- 
ment to his pupils. Their little difficulties are brought 
to him, and in his solution rest. His casual remarks 
sink into their minds. His opinions on men and things 
make their way by the double force of authority and 
affection. His companionship, his sympathy, are above 
all things delightful. The imitative principle, so power- 
ful in early life, is incessantly in action. The children 
are daily assimilating parts of his nature, making it 
one with their own. What an influence is his over their 
future destiny ! 



152 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

Education is, in truth, the first concern of society, and 
it ought to have the energies of society's best minds. 
The Athenians, who had ghmpses of whatever was most 
glorious, did in this matter leave mankind a great exam- 
ple. Teaching was the honorable occupation of their 
greatest men. The brightest minds of Athenian phi- 
losophy were the instructors of Athenian youth ; so 
keenly was the truth felt, that the mature intelligence 
and moral power acquired in the struggles of a distin- 
guished life, could perform no higher function than that 
of rearing up the same precious fruits in the rising 
minds of the community. 

John Lalor. 



Give me for a few years the direction of education, 
and I agree to transform the world. 



G. W. Leibnitz. 



ALL-AROUND EDUCATION. 

Let it be our hope to make a gentleman of every 
youth who is put under our charge ; not a conventional 
gentleman, but a man of culture, a man of intellectual 
resource, a man of public spirit, a man of refinement, 
with that good taste which is the conscience of the 
mind, and that conscience which is the good taste of 
the soul. . . . Let our aim be to give a good all-around 
education, fitted to cope with as many of the exigencies 
of the day as possible. I had rather the college should 
turn out one of Aristotle's four-square men, capable of 
holding his own in whatever field he may be cast, than 
a score of lop-sided ones, developed abnormally in one 
direction. 

James Russell Lowell. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



153 



That which every gentleman that takes any care of 
his education desires for his son is contained in these 
four things : Virtue, Wisdom, Good-breeding, and Learn- 
ing. 

John Locke. 



MEDITATION AND DISCOURSE. 

I WILL only say this one thing concerning books : that 
however it has got the name, yet converse with books 
is not, in my opinion, the principal part of study ; there 
are two others that ought to be joined with it, each 
whereof contributes its share to our improvement in 
knowledge ; and these are meditation and discourse. 
Reading, methinks, is but collecting the rough mate- 
rials, amongst which a great deal must be laid aside as 
useless. Meditation is, as it were, choosing and fitting 
the materials, framing the timbers, squaring and laying 
the stones, and raising the building ; and discourse with 
a friend (for wrangling in a dispute is of little use) is, 
as it were, surveying the structure, walking in the 
rooms, and observing the symmetry and agreement of 
the parts, taking notice of the solidity or defects of the 
works, and the best way to find out and correct what is 
amiss ; besides that, it helps often to discover truths 
and fix them in our minds, as much as either of the 
other two. 

John Locke. 

The only true equalizers in the world are books ; the 
only treasure-house open to all comers is a library ; the 
only wreath which will not decay is knowledge ; the only 
jewel which you can carry beyond the grave is wisdom. 

J. A. Langford. 



154 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, coolly 
answers, calmly speaks, and ceases when he has noth- 
ing to say, is in possession of the best requisites of a 
good converser. 

John C. Lavater. 

It is only knowledge, which, worne with years, wax- 
eth young ; and when all things are cut away with the 
cicle of Time, knowledge flourisheth so high that Time 
cannot reach it. 

John Lyly. 

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

The knowledge of the Scriptures, which are the 
ground of our religion, is an essential part of true edu- 
cation in its literary and intellectual aspect. It is a 
branch of knowledge too high in its claims, whether 
true or false ; too wide in its bearings, whether histori- 
cal or religious ; too deep in its intimate connection 
with alt that is deepest in our nature to be ignored in 
any scheme of education, whether liberal or restricted. 
In other words, one cannot be called a truly educated 
man who is ignorant of the Bible. 

Tayler Lewis. 



' THE CLASSICS AND DISCIPLINE. 

The processes necessarily undergone by the mind in 
the study of the ancient languages yield some of the 
best elements of intellectual discipline. Such are the 
processes of observation, comparison, analysis and com- 
bination, classification and induction, — all requiring 
direct mental application and forming the power of 
fixed and concentrated attention, the accuracy of con- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 1 55 

ception and discrimination of judgment which are pe- 
culiar to a well-trained mind, and give it the mastery 
of itself and the objects of its pursuit. I need not 
minutely unfold this general fact, so familiar to all 
teachers in its special applications ; in the study of the 
meanings of Greek and Latin words, and a comparison 
of the way in which they are used in different places, of 
their various relations by inflexion, and by derivation 
and composition, and especially the study of their con- 
structions, with the nice habits of analysis, and the 
clearness of vision it gives, along with an insight into 
the laws of universal grammar. I cannot but think 
that such discipline is, on some accounts, better yielded 
by classical than by scientific studies. All these pro- 
cesses belong, indeed, eminently to science ; but is it 
not rather in the investigations and discoveries of the 
philosopher in his study than in the efforts of youth 
in the lecture-room that they exist "i The young 
student is furnished with the results of scientific re- 
s'earch ; he gains valuable knowledge, which is essen- 
tial, to a well-educated man ; but the knowledge can 
turn to discipline only when the things of which he 
reads or hears come into direct contact with his own 
mind, and become the object of his observation and 
comparison, his own classification and induction. But 
in the languages, though words are the signs of things, 
they are in one sense things themselves ; they are ever 
present to the student, and directly used by his own 
senses and mind, seen and observed, heard and spoken ; 
he must needs examine them himself, and himself com- 
pare, distinguish, analyze, and construct them. 

J. L. Lincoln. 



156 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



CULTURE OF THE WILL. 

In the moral sphere again, will stands pre-eminent. 
It is this that we have to cultivate. In the religious 
sphere we have, following at once Aristotle and the 
Christian doctrine, to direct the will and to fix it in the 
contemplation of. the divine. It can ultimately find 
satisfaction for its restless activity only in spiritual 
ideas and in God. Comparatively little value is to 
be attached by the educator to moral instruction, save 
in so far as it is directed and inspired by religion. It 
is this marriage of the moral and the spiritual that pro- 
duces what may be denoted by one name, — the ethical 
life. The discipline of the will in mere understanding 
and knowing contributes also its share to true ethical 
discipline. The unity of educational result may be in 
truth summed up in the single word ethical. Our aim 
in the school, therefore, is an ethical aim, and all we 
do is of true value only in so far as it contributes to 
this, — the final cause of all our teaching. By keeping 
this purpose steadily in view we alone truly educate a 
human being. Unity of purpose and method, both in 
the intellectual and moral sphere, is thereby secured. 
It is some such unity of purpose and method which the 
study of the philosophy of education must give, if it is 
to supply the place of native inspiration to the teacher. 

S. S. Laurie. 

Were there neither soul, heaven, nor hell, it would 
still be necessary to have schools for the sake of affairs 
here below, as the history of the Greeks and the Romans 
plainly teaches. 

Martin Luther. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 



157 



NOT RULES, BUT CHARACTER. 

I HAVE very little faith in rules of style, but I have 
unbounded faith in the virtue of cultivating direct and 
precise expression. It is not everybody who can com- 
mand the mighty rhythm of the greatest masters of 
human speech ; but every one can make reasonably 
sure that he knows what he means, and whether he has 
found the right word. It has been said a million times 
that the foundation of right expression in speech or 
writing is sincerity. It is as true now as it has ever 
been, and it is not merely the authors of books who 
should study right expression. It is a part of character. 
As somebody has said, by learning to speak with pre- 
cision you learn to think with correctness ; and firm 
and vigorous speech lies through the cultivation of high 
and noble sympathies. 

John Morley. 



THE GREAT REGENERATOR. 

Education in the widest sense of the word is the 
great regenerator of human society. To it we must 
owe the intellectual habits we form, the power which 
the reason and conscience have over the will, and the 
strength we possess to regulate the desires and to sub- 
due the passions. 

J. D. MORELL. 



SHAMEFUL INEFFICIENCY. 

This question, whether we should be taught the clas- 
sics or the sciences, seems to me, I confess, very like a 
dispute whether painters should cultivate drawing or 
coloring, or, to use a more homely illustration, whether 



158 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

a tailor should make coats or trousers. I can only reply- 
by the question, — why not both ? Can anything de- 
serve the name of a good education which does not in- 
clude literature and science too ? If there were no 
more to be said than that scientific education teaches us 
to think, and literary education to express our thoughts, 
do not we require both ? and is not any one a poor, 
maimed, lop-sided fragment of humanity who is deficient 
in either? We are not obliged to ask ourselves whether 
it is more important to know the languages or the sci- 
ences. Short as life is, and shorter still as we make it 
by the time we waste on things which are neither busi- 
ness, nor meditation, nor pleasure, we are not so badly 
off that our scholars need be ignorant of the laws and 
properties of the world they live in, our scientific men 
destitute of poetic feeling and artistic cultivation. I 
am amazed at the limited conception which many edu- 
cational reformers have formed to themselves of a. 
human being's power of acquisition. The study of 
science, they truly say, is indispensable ; our present 
education neglects it. There is truth in this, too, though 
it is not all truth, and they think it impossible to find 
room for the studies which they desire to encourage, 
but by turning out, at least from general education, 
those which are now chiefly cultivated. How absurd, 
they say, that the whole of boyhood should be taken up 
in acquiring an imperfect knowledge of two dead lan- 
guages. Absurd indeed : but is the human mind's 
capacity to learn measured by that of P^ton and West- 
minster to teach } I should prefer to see these reform- 
ers pointing their attacks against the shameful ineffi- 
ciency of the schools, public and private, which pretend 



EDUCATIONAL MaSAICS. 



159 



to teach these two languages and do not. I should like 
to hear them denounce the wretched methods of teach- 
ing, and the criminal idleness and supineness which 
waste the entire boyhood of the pupils without really 
giving to most of them more than a smattering, if even 
that, of the only kind of knowledge which is even pre- 
tended to be cared for. Let us try what conscientious 
and intelligent teaching can do, before we presume to 
decide what cannot be done. 

John Stuart Mill. 



THE CORNER-STONE. 

The very corner-stone of an education intended to 
form great minds must be the recognition of the princi- 
ple that the object is to call forth the greatest possible 
quantity of intellectual power, and to inspire the in- 
tensest love of truth. 

John Stuart Mill. 

INSPIRATION OF CURIOSITY. 

Curiosity must be awakened ere it can be satisfied ; 
nay, once awakened, it never fails in the end fully to 
satisfy itself ; and it has occurred to me, that by simply 
laying before the workingmen of the country the 
" story of my education," I may succeed in first excit- 
ing their curiosity, and next, occasionally at least, in 
gratifying it also. They will find that by far the best 
schools I ever attended are schools open to them all ; 
that the best teachers I ever had are (though severe in 
their discipline) always easy of access ; and that? the 
special y^r;;^ at which I was, if I may say so, most suc- 
cessful as a pupil, was a form to which I was drawn by 



l6o EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

a strong inclination, but at which I had less assistance 
from my brother men, or even from books, than at any 
of the others. There are few of the natural sciences 
which do not lie quite as open to the workingmen of 
Britain and America as geology did to me. 

Hugh Miller. 



THE SHELL AND THE KERNEL. 

Assuredly one fact which does not directly affect 
our own interest considered in itself, is no better worth 
knowing than another fact. The fact that there is a 
snake in a pyramid, or the fact that Hannibal crossed 
the Alps, are in themselves as unprofitable to us as the 
fact that there is a green blind in a particular house in 
Threadneedle Street, or the fact that a Mr. Smith comes 
into the city every morning on the top of one of the 
Blackwall stages. But it is certain that those who will 
not crack the shell of history will never get at the ker- 
nel. Johnson, with hasty arrogance, pronounced the 
kernel worthless, because he saw no value in the shell. 
The real use of travelling to distant countries, and of 
studying the annals of past times, is to preserve men 
from the contraction of mind which those can hardly 
escape whose whole communion is with one generation 
and one neighborhood ; who arrive at conclusions by 
means of an induction not sufficiently copious, and who 
therefore constantly confound exceptions with rules, 
and accidents with essential properties. In short, the 
real use of travelling and of studying history, is to keep 
men from being what Tom Dawson was in fiction and 
Samuel Johnson in reality. 

Thomas Babington Macaulay. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, l6l 

CONVERSATION AND TRAVEL. 

For learning to judge well and speak well, whatever 
presents itself to our eyes serves as a sufficient book. 
The knavery of a page, the blunder of a servant, a table 
witticism, — all such things, are so many new things to 
think about. And for this purpose, conversation with 
men is wonderfully helpful, and so is a visit to foreign 
lands to bring back the customs of those nations and 
their manners, and to whet and sharpen our wits by 
rubbing them upon those of others. 

Michel Montaigne. 



Education alone can conduct us to that enjoyment 
which is at once best in quality and infinite in quantity. 

Horace Mann. 



A THIRD KIND OF KNOWLEDGE. 

After the severity with which science was for so 
many ages treated by literature, I cannot wonder that 
science now retaliates and treats literature with con- 
tempt. I only have to say on the relative claims of 
science and literature what the great Dr. Arnold said : 
" If I had to choose, I would rather that a son of mine 
believed that the sun went round the earth, than that he 
should be entirely deficient in knowledge of beauty, of 
poetry, and of moral truth." I am glad to think that 
one may know something of these things and yet not 
believe that the sun goes round the earth. But of the 
two, I for one, am not prepared to accept the rather 
enormous pretensions that are nowadays made some- 



l62 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

times for physical science as the be-all and end-all of 
education. Next to this, we know that there is a great 
stir on behalf of technical and commercial education. 
The special needs of our time and country compel us 
to pay a particular attention to this subject. Here 
knowledge is business, and we shall never hold our in- 
dustrial pre-eminence, with all that hangs upon it, unless 
we push on scientific, technical, and commercial educa- 
tion with all our might. But there is — and now I come 
to my subject — a third kind of knowledge, which, too, 
in its way, is business. There is the cultivation of the 
sympathies and imagination, the quickening of the 
moral sensibilities, and the enlargement of the moral 
vision. That is, I take it, the business and function of 
literature. 

John Morley. 

THE HIGHEST PERFECTION. 

The end of all learning is to repair the ruins of our 
first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out 
of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like 
him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of 
true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of 
faith, makes up the highest perfection. But because 
our understanding cannot in this body found itself but 
on sensible things, nor arrive so clearly to the knowl- 
edge of God and things invisible, as by orderly conning 
over the visible and inferior creature, the same method 
is necessarily to be followed in all discreet teaching. 
And seeing every nation affords not experience and 
tradition enough for all kinds of learning, therefore we 
are chiefly taught the language of those people who 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 163 

have at any time been most industrious after wisdom ; 
so that language is but the instrument conveying to us 
things useful to be known. And though a linguist 
should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel 
cleft the world into, yet if he have not studied solid 
things in them, as well as the words and lexicons, he 
were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man 
as any yeoman or tradesman completely wise in his 
mother dialect only. 

John Milton. 



The better a man is, the greater his ardor in the pres- 
ervation of learning ; for he knows that of all plagues 
ignorance is the most pernicious. 



Philip Melanchthon. 



GRAMMATICAL STUDIES. 

Grammatical studies, although they do not neces- 
sarily impart the power of expression so effectually as 
the imitation of the great models, furnish the student 
with the means of entering into the secrets of composi- 
tion, of exploring the mysterious laws of creative genius, 
and of submitting his own productions to the control of 
reason and of established principles. It is then that 
theory becomes a useful auxiliary to practice. 

A familiarity with the national grammar will be the 
best preparation for a similar study in the foreign lan- 
guage, as the learner will find in the grammar of that 
language the same technical denominations and the 
same definitions. It also assists in translating from the 
native into the foreign tongue, because, in order to as- 
certain what is the foreign expression corresponding to 



1 64 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

the native, one must know the nature of the words to be 
translated and their functions in the sentence. 

C. Marcel. 



' APPLIED THOUGHT. 

The test of real and vigorous thinking, the thinking 
which ascertains truths instead of dreaming dreams, is 
successful application to practice. Where that purpose 
does not exist to give definiteness, precision, and intel- 
ligible meaning to thought, it generates nothing better 
than the mystical metaphysics of the Pythagoreans, or 
the Vedas. With respect to practical improvement, 
the case is still more evident. The character which im- 
proves human life is that which struggles with natural 
powers and tendencies, not that which gives way to 
them. The self-benefiting qualities are all on the side 
of the active and vigorous character. 

John Stuart Mill. 



NEVER ENDING. 

We all know that the business of education, in its 
widest sense, is co-extensive with a man's life ; that it 
begins with the first moment of life and ends with the 
last ; and that it goes on in every combination of place, 
company, and circumstance in which a man may volun- 
tarily station himself, or into which he may be casually 
thrust. 

David Masson. 



A STUDENT should be as frugal of his time as a miser 
of his money ; should save it with as much care, and 
spend it with as much caution. 



John Mason. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 



PHYSICAL CULTURE. 



165 



Evidently, nothing can be more personal, more lit- 
erally and strictly vital, than bodily health. It is the 
first and the perpetual condition of success. In any 
enterprise there are primary and secondary conditions 
affecting the result. In making a voyage, it is neces- 
sary first of all to have a ship that will float and hold 
together till the port is gained ; it may spread more or 
less canvas, be manned by few or many sailors, be navi- 
gated with more or less skill, be fast or slow, be driven 
by wind or steam, — these are secondary matters. The 
ship itself, staunch enough to resist the waves, is the 
primary condition of the voyage. So in this enterprise 
and voyage of life, a body sound enough to hold to- 
gether till the port of threescore and ten is attained 
comes first in all wise and logical consideration. Tal- 
ents, learning, aptitude, good chances, energy, — these, 
according to the degree, affect the voyage, and make it 
smooth or rough, quick or slow ; but they do not deter- 
mine whether or not there shall be a voyage. I do not 
say that these are to be regarded lightly, or other than 
as great helps ; but I afiirm that, without bodily health, 
they are in vain so far as achievement is concerned. 
Energy, purpose, culture, enthusiasm, thrift, — these 
are the engine that propel the man ; but an engine re- 
quires first of all proper bearings, a frame stout enough 
to endure the strain of its vibrations, and to convert its 
energy into steady motion. Professor Huxley goes too 
far, however, as he is very prone to do, when he says, 
" Give a man a good deep chest and a stomach of which 
he never knew the existence, and a boy must succeed 



166 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

in any practical career." For it is a fact that a vast 
number of very worthless beings fulfil these conditions, 
— "animated patent digesters," Carlyle calls them, — 
whose only achievements are the consumption of food 
and oxygen.' Brain and race and training have some- 
thing to do with success in practical careers. The cap- 
tain on the bridge, the pilot at the wheel, and the 
engineer at the lever, are conditions of the successful 
voyage, though the staunchness of the ship may be the 
primary condition. 

It needs but a glance, however, at the men who have 
succeeded in any department to perceive that, as a rule, 
they have good bodies. I do not say that all men 
who have achieved success have lived long, or been free 
from disease ; but I assert that it is impossible to name 
a man great in any department of life, who did not pos- 
sess what a physician would call a strong vitality. 
Many great men have died early and endured life-long 
disease ; but a close physiological examination would 
show that they were largely endowed with nervous 
energy, and usually with a good muscular system. I 
grant the rare exception, as a skiff may by good luck 
cross the Atlantic. Nature is not blind. She does not 
put great engines into weak ships. There is a fallacy 
in the common remark that the mind is too great for 
the body. A great mind may overwork and tear in 
pieces even a good body ; but, for the most part, any 
body properly used and superintended is strong enough 
to uphold and do the work of the mind lodged in it. 
Man is one ; no line can be drawn between the working 
functions of body and mind. A part of all mental ac- 
tion is also physical action. Will is also a matter of 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 1 67 

nerves, energy is graduated by the blood, and the finest 
thought stands with one foot upon tissue of brain. By 
its very definition, high thought and large achievement 
imply a strong physical basis. 

****** 

A fine engine is favorable to the speed and safety of 
the voyage ; but quite as much depends upon the build 
of the vessel, and even more upon how both are 
handled. 

T. T. Hunger. 



HIGH IDEALS. 



When the fancy is devoted to its intended use, it 
helps to cheer, to elevate, to ennoble the soul. It is 
in its proper exercise when it is picturing something 
better than we have ever yet realized, — some grand 
ideal of excellence, — and sets us forth on the attain- 
ment of it. All excellence, whether earthly or spiritual, 
has been attained by the mind keeping before it and 
dwelling upon the ideas of the great, the good, the 
beautiful, the grand, the perfect. The tradesman and 
mechanic attain to eminence by their never allowing 
themselves to rest till they can produce the most fin- 
ished specimens of their particular work. The painter 
and sculptor travel to distant lands that they may see, 
and, as it were, fill their eye and mind with the most 
beautiful models of their arts. Poets have had their 
yet undiscovered genius awakened into life as they con- 
templated some of the grandest of nature's scenes ; or, 
as they listened to the strains of other poets, the spirit 
of poetry has descended upon them, as the spirit of 



1 68 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

inspiration descended upon Elisha while the minstrel 
played before him. The soldier's spirit has been 
aroused, more than even by the stirring sound of the 
war-trumpet, by the record of the courage and heroism 
of other warriors. The fervor of one patriot has been 
created as he listened to the burning words of another 
patriot ; and many a martyr's zeal has been kindled at 
the funeral pile of other martyrs. In this way, fathers 
have handed down their virtues to their children ; and 
parents have left their offspring a better legacy in their 
example than in all their wealth ; and those who could 
leave them nothing else, have in this example left them 
the very richest legacy. In this way the good men of 
one age have influenced the characters of the men of 
another ; and the deeds of those who have done great 
achievements have lived far longer than those who per- 
formed them, and been transmitted from one generation 
to another. 

James McCosh. 

Those who would train the young mind to its highest 
capacity must furnish to the young the records of deeds 
of heroism, of benevolence, of self-sacrifice, of courage 
to resist the evil and maintain the good. 

James McCosh. 



WANTED: WELL-BALANCED MINDS. 

The want of well-balanced minds is a serious fault of 
this age. Inventors, or would-be inventors, are found, 
who spend years of time and large sums of money upon 
an insane attempt to produce a result that any respect- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 1 69 

able scholar in mechanics or chemistry could have told 
them in five minutes could never be obtained. Mathe- 
maticians are found, who, though experts in their 
favorite studies, are nevertheless useless in the world, 
for want of the proper training and development of 
other faculties. Lawsuits in numberless cases are 
entered upon and fought through to the bitter end 
(frequently terminating like the famous case brought 
before Mr. Justice Monkey, concerning the cheese), 
simply from a misunderstanding, or from a wrong use 
or a wrong interpretation of language. Education 
should aim to produce well-balanced minds, not erratic 
geniuses. 

WiLUAM A. MOWRY. 



CONCENTRATION OF PURPOSE. 

Distraction of pursuit is the rock on which most 
unsuccessful persons split in early life. Nine men out 
of ten lay out their plans on too vast a scale ; and they 
who are competent to do almost anything do nothing, 
because they never make up their minds distinctly as to 
what they want or what they intend to be. Hence the 
mournful failures we see all around us in every walk of 
life. Behold a De Quincey, with all his wondrous and 
weird-like powers, his enormous learning and wealth 
of thought, producing nothing worthy of his rare gifts ! 
See a Coleridge, a man of Shakesperian mould, possess- 
ing a creative power of Titanic grasp, and yet, for want 
of concentration, fathoming among all his vagrancies no 
foundation, filling no chasms, and of all his dazzling and 
colossal literary schemes not completing one ! The heir 



170 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



of eternity scorning to be the slave of time ! Feeling 
that he has all the ages to work in, he squanders the 
precious present; so he lets his dreams go by ungrasped, 
his magnificent promises unrealized ; and his life may be 
summed up in the words of Charles Lamb, who writes 
to a friend : "Coleridge is dead, and is said to have left 
behind him above forty thousand treatises on meta- 
physics and divinity, not one of them complete ! " 

William Mathews. 



OVERWORKED TEACHERS. 

I NEVER look at a group of teachers such as are em- 
ployed in the colleges for girls, but I am reminded of the 
expression of St. Ambrose, — " the noble army of mar- 
tyrs." The work of a teacher should be such as does 
not kill, for the value of human life is quite as great in 
the case of a teacher as in that of the student. 

The pleasant smile with which a young teacher greets 
her class as ^he enters upon her duties should become 
more serene, more inspiring at middle life. But how 
can it be '^. I find that the number of students to one 
teacher is usually fifty! The amount of work that 
teachers do is enormous. There seems to be no "get- 
ting through." They work five or six hours a day, and 
then take to their rooms the written examinations and 
problems for their evening recreation. Besides, a good 
teacher does infinitely higher work outside of tutorial 
hours. I have sometimes looked at the variety of work 
done for some young girl, — the careful watching over 
her health, the good counsel given in morals, the patient 
endurance with loose mental habits, — and I have said 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



I/] 



to myself, " How little that parent knows the enormous 
retm-n which he gets for his moneyed investment ! " We 
are constantly told that too many women become teach- 
ers. Yes; but the number would not be too great if 
fewer students were put into the hands of one teacher. 
A teacher should not cease to be a student ; she cannot, 
with safety ; she should have time for new acquirements. 
I would not say give time by lengthening vacations, but 
I would say give time by lessening the number of stu- 
dents. A young girl needs the companionship in her 
classes of a few, but the teacher should know each pupil 
individually. According to my own idea, the proper 
number for good class-work is ten ; but when I asked a 
professor of Cornell how many he thought best for class 
and professor, he said, " Four." Given a small class 
and a teacher of any magnetism, and there need be no 
required attendance. 

Miss Maria Mitchell. 



Let our pupil be provided with things ; words will 
follow only too fast. 

Philosophy is that which teaches us to live. 

Michel Montaigne. 



INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS NEEDED. 

"Industrial education," says a recent writer, "is 
demanded by every principle upon which our general 
educational system is based." We must pay a fair price 
for it. We cannot expect frugality, industry, and skill 
when we have taken no means to secure them. When 



172 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



England became conscious of her inferiority, she estab- 
lished her art and science schools, and has made such 
giant strides in art-production, that the French have 
been obliged to redouble their efforts in order to retain 
their traditional superiority. We are in the condition 
England occupied thirty years ago. What shall Amer- 
ica do.-^ We have found that general literary education 
will not answer this need. Our schools are admirable, 
numerous, expensive, and yet we stand at the bottom of 
all civilized nations in everything relating to industrial 
education. This is a question that concerns us all, — 
the buyer, the seller, the worker, the poor, and the rich. 
It is a public question, for our arts are passing into the 
hands of aliens, and our markets into the control of 
foreigners. 

Arthur MacArthur. 



PRESUMPTION OF BRAINS. 

I AM not claiming that the old schools were altogether 
better than the new ; but there was in them the one 
thing needful which the new schools are liable to miss ; 
namely, the necessity for thought and individual self- 
activity on the part of the child. I tell you what it is, 
fellow teachers, there is a presumption at the start that 
the child has brains. It is safe, also, to assume that he 
has used that organ to some extent and in more direc- 
tions than one, before coming to school ; and he must be 
compelled to use it again, and to use it constantly. This 
presumption will enable you to skip many of the methods, 
and to lighten and shorten your work. And in the rare 
instances where the presumption does not hold, and in 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 1 73 

SO far as the presumption does not hold, you still have 
the elaborate methods *' adapted to idiots." 

And there is another presumption of brains ; namely, 
in the teacher. A teacher with brains and pupils with 
brains we have a right to expect, and if we do, we may 
save ourselves some of the labor. For example, the 
superintendent need not feel obliged to mark out from 
day to day all that every teacher in every school is 
expected to do with every child. The teacher is pre- 
sumed to have brains ; the child is presumed to have 
brains. Let them be used. 

A. P. Marble. 



WHICH? A FARCE OR A TRAGEDY ? 

A POPULAR government, without popular information 
or the means of acquiring it, is a farce or a tragedy, or 
both. Knowledge will govern ignorance ; and a people 
who mean to be their own governors must arm them^- 
selves with the power which knowledge gives. 

James Madison. 



THE PILGRIMS AND EDUCATION. 

In 1647, when a few scattered and feeble settlements, 
almost buried in the depths of the forest, were all that 
constituted the colony of Massachusetts ; when the 
entire population consisted of twenty-one thousand 
souls ; when the external means of the people were 
small, their dwellings humble, and their raiment and 
subsistence scanty and homely ; when the whole valu- 
ation of all the colonial estates, both public and private, 
would hardly equal the inventory of many a private 



174 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



individual at the present day ; when the fierce eye of 
the savage was nightly seen glaring from the edge of 
the surrounding wilderness, and no defence or succor 
was at hand, — it was then, amid all these privations and 
dangers, that the Pilgrim Fathers conceived the magnifi- 
cent idea of a free and universal education for the 
people. And amid all their poverty they stinted them- 
selves to a still scantier pittance ; amid all their toils they 
imposed upon themselves still more burdensome labors ; 
amid all their perils they braved still greater dangers, 
that they might find the time and the means to reduce 
their grand conception to practice. Two divine ideas 
filled their great hearts : their duty to God and to pos- 
terity. For the one they built the church ; for the 
other they opened the school. Religion and knowl- 
edge ! two attributes of the same glorious and eternal 
truth, and that truth the only one on which immortal 
or mortal happiness can be securely founded. 

Horace Mann. 



MOTHER IDEAS. 



The fundamental data of knowledge, what Pestalozzi 
calls " mother ideas," are those primal notions of things 
that come to us through the senses. The child must 
be put into right relationship with nature, and his 
knowledge of distance, direction, plants, animals, min- 
erals, industries, commerce, political economy, and his- 
tory must rest upon personal observation. Physiology 
cannot be successfully taught without the skeleton, nor 
physics and chemistry outside of the laboratory. The 
mind brought into proper relation to nature, to things, 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 1 75 

to objects of sense, is allured to activity, gratified, fed, 
developed, educated. Learning becomes a perennial 
and exhaustless source of joy. But an attempt to teach 
science from books before the preliminary ideas have 
been made familiar by observation is not only futile, 
but destructive of the powers of the mind. Many a 
child is ruined for life by the deadening process of 
cramming his memory with words of whose meaning 
he is ignorant. Words are but symbols, and are chiefly 
valuable as reviving the memory of past experiences, or 
of putting into convenient and orderly shape the pro- 
cesses of our own thinking; or, at best, of stimulating 
the mind to put itself, by its own energies, into the 
same state as that occupied by the writer. As a gen- 
eral law, words should come after ideas; the child 
should learn things before he learns about things ; he 
should derive all his ideas of number by counting, com- 
bining, separating, dividing, weighing, and measuring 
things ; he should not be taught to read until he has 
ideas and thoughts, and can embody them in sentences 
of his own structure. Books should supplement, and 
not precede, oral instruction. Facts should precede 
principles ; processes come before rules. Grammar and 
rhetoric should always follow practical language; litera- 
ture should comprise the reading of the authors, and 
not merely reading about them ; foreign languages 
should be learned by use, and not from grammar. 
Geography should, as far as possible, be learned from 
travel, and psychology from introspection. This great 
law of nature — the imperative necessity of knowledge 
at first hand — has been repeated by all the great re- 
formers in educational methods, — by Montaigne, Rous- 



1^6 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

seau, Locke, Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel, — and 
is so patent as to command at once the assent of every 
thoughtful mind ; and yet it is ruthlessly violated every 
day, nearly everywhere, and, I might almost say, by 
nearly everybody. And Nature avenges herself by 
blinding the teachers who do it, and by stupefying the 
minds of their victims. The school, which should be a 
seminary, a place of seed-sowing, becomes a charnel- 
house, — the burial place of fond hopes and youthful 
aspirations. 

The meagre results that often issue from long years 
of schooling, the vast number of pupils that drop out of 
the lower grades, the few that find their way to college, 
the spirit of indifference to learning that pervades so 
many educational institutions, the oft-repeated criticism 
of the public-school system for its lack of practical re- 
sults, the wide-spread agitation in favor of industrial 
training, and the bitter complaint of many distinguished 
men as to how they were educated, all point to a real 
defect in our system of education. It is the part of 
wisdom to locate the evil, if possible, and then to re- 
move it. 

Thomas J. Morgan. 

The purpose of instruction is to carry forward intel- 
ligences to the farthest point they are capable of 
attaining. 

Nicole. 



CONVERSATION A FINE ART. 

To teach how to talk well should be the constant aim 
of both home and school training. Conversation should 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. lyy 

be regarded not merely as an art, but as a fine art, in- 
deed the noblest of the fine arts ; and therefore should 
be cultivated with the zest of the amateur in painting 
and sculpture. Carefully practised, it becomes a prime 
educator, awakening curiosity, sharpening perception, 
cultivating attention, quickening both the memory and 
imagination, and developing versatility, tact, and vivac- 
ity. In view of the range and grandeur of its subjects, 
the greatness of its influence, and the brilliancy of its 
victories, speech is the grandest of all arts. The lead- 
ers of men in every age have gained their wide sway by 
this divine gift of speech. The greatest triumphs of 
truth are won by the tongue. Though it is " a little 
member," it justly "boasteth great things." 

B. G. NORTHRUP. 



TWILIGHT REGIONS. 

The greatest minds have but a limited range of in- 
telligence. In all of them there are regions of twilight 
and shadow ; but the intelligence of the child is almost 
wholly pervaded by shadows ; he catches glimpses of 
but few rays of light. So everything depends on man- 
aging these rays, on increasing them, and on exposing 
to them whatever we wish to have the child comprehend. 

Nicole. 



HISTORY AND PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE. 

It is only when the understanding can deal clearly 
with occurrences, their origin and consequences, deduce 
the general from the particular, and comprehend the 



178 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

spirit of the nations in every period, that history be- 
comes anything more than mere memorizing, and is a 
real training for the mind. If it does not communicate 
a knowledge of that which alone, amidst all the changes 
of humanity, is entitled to honor and imitation, and of 
the truth that evil, however much it may prosper for a 
little time, ultimately perishes, or even if it endures to 
posterity, may last for centuries as a warning, branded 
with contempt ; — if this knowledge does not produce a 
pure condition of the moral nature, including in itself 
all that humanity honors and ennobles, and realizing it, 
whenever possible, in deeds ; — and if, lastly, practical 
acuteness is not, from this knowledge of previous ex- 
perience, joined with the wisdom gained, so far as is 
consistent with that wisdom : — then all historical learn- 
ing, even the profoundest, must remain mere dead 
knowledge. 

NiEMEYER, 



TRAINING OF THE EYE. 

The eye should be trained to accurate vision and to 
careful and discriminating observation. How many, for 
the lack of proper training of the senses, *' have eyes but 
see not ! " They live in a world of infinite variety and 
beauty, but they see nothing except such gross objects 
as are forced upon their attention. . . . Hence it is 
that nature has no charms for the untrained eye. What 
a loss of pleasure to human life, in consequence of this 
voluntary blindness ! Well may these exclaim with 
"the blind old bard" — 

*' Seasons return ; but not to me returns 
Day, or the sweet approach of eve, or morn." 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



179 



And not only pleasure, but utility, requires the train- 
ing of the senses. Observation is an important source 
of education. The immediate knowledge of the external 
world comes to the mind through the sense of sight 
more than all the other senses. Indeed, every other 
sense is powerless in dealing with distant objects and 
their relations to each other. The cultivated eye alone 
sees these objects as they are, and traces their relations 
to the universe of matter. Accurate observation has 
created the science of the material world. 

Hiram Orcutt. 



THE SCIENCES CLOSELY RELATED. 

I HOLD that to tmdersta7id thoroughly any branch of 
science, it is necessary to know much, also, of various 
kindred sciences. Thus, no one can understand chem- 
istry well, without knowing something also of mechani- 
cal philosophy ; and no one can be master of the 
mechanical laws of nature, without much knowledge also 
of the chemical laws. Each science has various relations 
to the other ; and chemical and mechanical principles 
are often so intimately blended in the same phenomenon, 
either of art or nature, that its full and complete expla- 
nation must involve both mechanical and chemical con- 
siderations. Neither the chemist nor the natural phi- 
losopher is competent alone to understand the steam 
engine. The development of the power of elastic steam 
is chemical ; the application of it to machinery is mechani- 
cal. So in the explanation of almost any atmospheric 
phenomenon, as a tornado, the principles of both these 
sciences are brought into requisition. In a similar man- 



l8o EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

ner, it is impossible to gain a thorough knowledge of 
any single language without some acquaintance with 
kindred tongues. It is superfluous to say that no one 
can understand the philosophy of language without an 
intimate acquaintance with many languages. 

Denison Olmstead. 

CRAMMING. 

I DO not for a moment deny that much is to be gained 
from the study of scientific text-books. It would be 
absurd to do so. What I do deny is, that the reading 
up of books on science — which is, strictly speaking, a 
literary study — either is, or can possibly be, a training 
in scientific method. To receive facts in science on 
any other authority than that of the facts themselves ; 
to get up the observations, experiments, and comments 
of others, instead of observing, experimenting, and com- 
menting ourselves ; to learn definitions, rules, abstract 
propositions, technicalities, before we personally deal 
with the facts which lead up to them ; — all this, whether 
in literary or scientific education, — and especially in the 
latter, — is of the essence of cramming, and is therefore 
entirely opposed to and destructive of true mental 
training and discipline. 

Joseph Payne. 



TOO DIFFICULT. 

But why not study natural science } The whole world 
is now occupied with physical science. The inquirer 
and objector both shout in union, "The child cannot 
begin the study of nature too early nor continue it too 
long. The whole world is now ready to be interested 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. i8i 

with physics and chemistry, with all the varieties of 
what we call the physical agencies and their relations 
one to another. Give your son and your daughter the 
earliest interest in physics, and let them early become 
familiar with these new sciences which put such a new 
face on the universe of the present and on the universe 
of the past. Why not } " Why not } Simply because 
the time to study physics reflectively, with its wondrous 
revelations, with its perplexing questions, with its magic 
and its mystery, — the time has not come until the 
power of discrimination and reflection is fully formed ; 
and long before this has taken place the mastery of the 
ancient and modern languages can be achieved. Let 
natural history occupy the boy and the girl, but let nat- 
ural science be delayed. Let botany and physiology be 
mastered so far as either may be said to be a science of 
observation. Store the believing and gushing mind 
with facts, but do not, pray do not, perplex the childish 
and youthful simplicity of your son and daughter with 
those speculations that stagger the strongest thinkers, 
and force them to grapple with either the new scepti- 
cisms or the new faiths which everywhere obtrude them- 
selves in the form of physical science. First, give 
them maturity of mind and the power to discriminate 
and comprehend. Meanwhile, while memory is active 
and imagination is fresh, while the hopes are full of 
confident delight for good in the future, delay these 
puzzling questions and these doubtful inquiries till the 
mind has been disciplined to grapple with them. Noth- 
ing can be more mistaken, it seems to me, than the in- 
decent haste with which young persons nowadays are 
exercised in our higher schools with what should be 



1 82 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

called the great problems of physical science. While I 
would have them delight in natural history, and occupy 
their minds and imaginations with these inquiries, and 
enjoy the results, I would keep back, until the proper 
time of reflection shall have come, those puzzling in- 
quiries which demand maturity and the disciplined mind 
before they can be properly met and successfully mas- 
tered. But let them study history, and above all, let 
them breathe the very atmosphere of ancient life by the 
study of classical literature. Let them study history in 
its dates, its facts, and its pictures of the past ; but for 
the same reason that I would delay and defer the study 
of philosophical or metaphysical physics, I would keep 
them back from all these high-sounding words which 
we hear at every corner about the science of history, 
the science of politics, the science of the state, and even 
the science of ethics and religion. 

Noah Porter. 



My method of learning the Roman language may 
seem strange, and yet it is very true. I did not so much 
gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by 
the knowledge I had of things. 

The understanding is not a vessel which must be 
filled, but firewood, which needs to be kindled ; and love 
of learning and love of truth are what should kindle it. 

Plutarch, 



ACTION THE HIGHEST END. 

The will is the highest faculty of the mind, and en- 
deavor the highest development of the will. To this con- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 1 83 

elusion we have come by stages of steady progress, and 
the proofs are various and united by links and interlacings 
that cannot be sundered or separated. When Demos- 
thenes was asked what is the most important element in 
oratory, and replied, "Action, action, action," who can tell 
how deep his meaning was ? He is said not to have sought 
dramatic effects by physical action, but every sentence 
of his orations had action for its end. If applied to this 
feature of his oratory, his reply would be strikingly per- 
tinent. But in the view of the will here set forth, his 
words have a profounder application still. Action is 
not only the end of oratory, but the highest end to be 
sought in every attempt to develop the human mind." 

F. B. Palmer. 



A PLEA FOR ELECTIVES. 

Nobody who has taught both elective and prescribed 
studies need be told how the instruction in the two cases 
differs. With perfunctionary students, a teacher is 
concerned with devices for forcing his pupils onward. 
Teaching becomes a secondary affair ; the time for it is 
exhausted in questioning possible shirks. Information 
must be elicited, not imparted. The text-book, with its 
fixed lessons, is a thing of consequence. It is the teach- 
er's business to watch his pupils, to see that they carry 
off the requisite knowledge ; their business, then, it soon 
becomes to try to escape without it. Between teacher 
and scholar there goes on an ignoble game of matching 
wits, in which the teacher is smart if he can catch a boy, 
and the boy is smart if he can know nothing without 
being found out. Because of this supposed antagonism 



1 84 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

of interests American higher education seldom escapes 
an air of unreality. We seem to be at the opera bouffe. 
A boy appears at the learning shop, purchases his parcel 
of knowledge, and then tries to toss it under the counter 
and dodge out of the door before the shopman can be 
quick enough to make him carry off the goods. Nothing 
can cure such folly except insistence that pupil's neglect 
is not teacher's injury. The elective system points out 
to a man that he has something at stake in a study, and 
so trains him to look upon time squandered as a personal 
loss. Where this consciousness can be presumed, a 
higher style of teaching becomes possible. Methods 
spring up unlike formal lectures, unlike humdrum reci- 
tations. The student acquires — what he will need 
in after life — the power to look up a single subject in 
many books. Theses are written ; discussions held ; in 
higher courses, problems of research supersede defined 
tasks. . . . 

But it would be unfair to imply that the new spirit is 
awakened in students alone. Professors are themselves 
instructed. The obstacles to their proper work, those 
severest of all obstacles which come from defective sym- 
pathy, are cleared away. A teacher draws near his 
class, and learns what he can do for it. Long ago it 
was said that among the Gentiles — people spiritually 
rude — great ones exercised authority, while in a state 
of righteousness this should not be so ; there the leader 
would estimate his importance by his serviceability. It 
was a teacher who spoke, and he spoke to teachers. 
To-day teacher's dangers lie in the same direction. 
Always dealing with inferiors, isolated from criticism, 
by nature not less sluggish than others, through the 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 1 85 

honorable passion which they feel for their subject 
disposed to set the private investigation of it above its 
exposition, teachers are continually tempted to think of 
a class as if it existed for their sakes rather than they 
for its. Fasten pupils to the benches, and nothing 
counteracts this temptation except that individual con- 
science, which in all of us is a faculty that will well bear 
strengthening. It may be just to condemn the dull, 
the intolerant, the self-absorbed teacher ; but why not 
condemn also the system which perpetuates him } 
Nobody likes to be inefficient ; slackness is largely a 
fault of inadvertence. That system is good which 
makes inadvertence difficult and opens the way for a 
teacher to discover whether his instructions hit. Give 
students choice, and a professor gets the power to see 
himself as others see him. . . . There is, therefore, in the 
new method a self -regulating adjustment. Teacher and 
taught are put on their good behavior. A spirit of 
faithfulness is infused into both, and by that very fact 
the friendliest relation is established between them. 

G. H. Palmer. 

ELECTIVES AND NATURAL DEFICIENCY. 
In the next place the elective system is the best pos- 
sible preventive and cure for poor scholarship. I will 
not say that it is a specific. Our latest school of medi- 
cine denies that there are specifics. There certainly are 
none for deficient brain power, for native levity of intel- 
lect, or for a mind enfeebled by moral depravity. But 
there are not a few minds, of respectable, some of supe- 
rior, ability, that lack capacity in some one direction. I 
have known persons susceptible of high culture, in one 



1 86 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

case a youth of surpassing genius, who could not com- 
prehend the theorems of sohd geometry, or even the 
formulas of plane trigonometry. It is not uncommon 
for a young man who has in his boyhood known no lan- 
guage but his own, to show what seems stupidity in the 
study of the ancient languages, and yet to manifest a 
superior aptitude for mathematics or philosophy. Now, 
persistent failure and inferiority in any one department 
are very apt to break down a student's spirit, to destroy 
his enterprise, to quench his ambition, and thus to reduce 
him in the branches in which he might do well to the 
standard established by his incompetency in those in 
which he cannot do but ill. Far better is it that he be 
relieved as early as possible from the need of attempting 
that in which he cannot excel. The cases of utter and 
invincible distaste or indifference for certain departments 
are probably much more numerous than those of native 
incapacity, and they crave the same treatment. . . . Let 
a young man choose the branches that he will study ; 
you can rely upon his putting into them the best work 
that he can do. 

A. P. Peabody. 



KINDLE YOUR OWN FIRE. 

As it would be with a man who, going to his neigh- 
bor's to borrow fire, and finding there a great and bright 
fire, should sit down to warm himself and forget to go 
home, so is it with the one who comes to another to 
learn, if he does not think himself obliged to kindle his 
own fire within, and influence his own mind, but con- 
tinues sitting by Ifis master as if he were enchanted, 
delighted by hearing. 

Plutarch , 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 1 8/ 

EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE. 

There will always be men whom nothing can keep 
uneducated, men like Franklin and Bowditch, who can 
break down every obstacle ; men gifted with such te- 
nacity of resolution, such vigor of thought, such power 
of self-control, they live on difficulties, and seem strong- 
est when fed most abundantly with that rugged fare ; 
men that go forth strong as the sun and as lonely, nor 
brook to take assistance from the world of men. For 
such no provision is needed. They fight their own bat- 
tles, for they are born fully armed, terrible from their 
very beginning. To them difficulty is nothing. Poverty 
but makes them watchful. Shut out from books and 
teachers, they have instructors in the birds and beasts, 
and whole Vatican libraries in the trees and stones. 
They fear no discouragement. They go the errand God 
sent them, trusting in him to bless the gift he gave. 
They beat the mountain of difficulty into dust, and get 
the gem it could not hide from an eye piercing as Argus. 
But these men are rare, — exceptions to the rule ; strong 
souls in much-enduring flesh. 

Theodore Parker. 



INTEREST INDISPENSABLE. 

An interest in study is the first thing which a teacher 
should endeavor to excite and keep alive. There are 
scarcely any circumstances in which a want of applica- 
tion in children does not proceed from a want of inter- 
est ; and there are perhaps none in which the want of 
interest does not originate in the mode of teaching 
adopted by the teacher. I would go so far as to lay it 



1 88 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

down as a rule that whenever children are inattentive 
and apparently take no interest in a lesson, the teacher 
should always first look to himself for the reason. . . . 
Could we conceive the indescribable tedium which must 
oppress the young mind while the weary hours are 
slowly passing away one after another in occupations 
which it can neither relish nor understand ; could we 
remember the like scenes which our own childhood has 
passed through, we should no longer be surprised at* the 
remissness of the schoolboy *' creeping like snail unwill- 
ingly to school." ... 

We must adopt a better mode of instruction, by 
which the children are less left to themselves, less 
thrown upon the unwelcome employment of passive 
listening, less harshly treated for little excusable fail- 
ings ; but more roused by questions, animated by illus- 
trations, interested and won by kindness. 

There is a most remarkable reciprocal action between 
the interest which the teacher takes and that which he 
communicates to his pupils. If he is not with his whole 
mind present at the subject, if he does not care whether 
he is understood or not, whether his manner is liked or 
not, he will alienate the affections of his pupils, and 
render them indifferent to what he says. But real 
interest taken in the task of instruction, kind words 
and kinder feelings, the very expression of the features 
and the glance of the eye, are never lost upon 
cnilaren. pestalozzi. 

Man cannot propose a higher and holier object for his 
study than education and all that pertains to education. 

Plato. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 1 89 

A HAPPY SCHOOL. 

The children very soon felt that there existed in them 
forces which they did not know ; and in particular, 
they acquired a general sentiment of order and beauty. 
They were self-conscious ; and the impression of weari- 
ness which habitually reigns in schools vanished like a 
shadow from my class-room. They willed, they had 
power, they persevered, they succeeded, and they were 
happy. They were not scholars who were learning, 
but children who felt unknown forces awakening within 
them, and who understood where these forces could and 
would lead them ; and this feeling gave elevation to 
their mind and heart. 

Pestalozzi. 



To educate children properly ought to be for the 
teacher only the second part of his undertaking. The 
first and the most difficult is to perfect himself. 

Madame Pape-Carpentier. 



A WORK FOR ETERNITY. 

Many fine things have been said concerning the mis- 
sion of teachers ; but after all that has been said, in all 
ages, upon the subject, more than justice has not been 
and never can be done to the theme. We may say 
with Channing, that there is no office higher than that 
of a teacher of youth ; for there is nothing on earth so 
precious as the mind, soul, character, of the child ; or, 
in the language of Everett, that the office of the teacher, 
in forming the minds and hearts of the young, and train- 
ing up those who are to take our places in life, is all-im- 



igo EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

portant ; or, in the words of President Humphrey, that 
the schoolmaster literally speaks, writes, teaches, paints 
for eternity. His pupils are immortal beings, whose 
minds are as clay to the seal under his hand. But such 
generalities, however just and true, fail to convey to 
our minds an adequate or vivid conception, either of the 
actual or possible results of the teacher's work. 

John D. Philbrick. 



VALUE OF EDUCATIONAL HISTORY. 

The history of education, — Chinese, Persian, Egyp- 
tian, Hindoo, Jewish, Greek, Roman, Mediaeval, French, 
German, English, Italian, — presents a field of almost 
infinite extent, too formidable to be contemplated with 
equanimity ; and yet there is not, I venture to say, any 
knowledge of a higher practical value to the educators 
of the day than this. The great need of the hour, it 
seems to me, is to ascertain what has been done in the 
line of educational effort, what plans have succeeded 
and what have failed, and the conditions under which 
success or failure has come. General history that re- 
cords the instinctive or impulsive acts of men has a 
high order of value ; but of a still higher value must be 
educational history that records the deliberate plans of 
the wisest and the best for the good of their kind. 

William H. Payne. 



EARLY LINGUISTIC TRAINING. 

But why not employ the time on the mathematics } 
The answer to that inquiry ... is simply this : that 
the time for the efficient and successful study of the 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. I9I 

mathematics does not come to boys and girls, as they 
ordinarily present themselves, until after the time has 
elapsed when the elements of Latin and Greek may be 
mastered. The premature study of the mathematics in 
algebra and geometry is not serviceable to the mind. It 
should be delayed till the mathematical powers have 
been developed and can be exercised with energy and 
satisfaction. The time before this may be best em- 
ployed in acquiring the elements of one or two modern 
languages. The linguistic comes before the reflective 
period. The mastery of language, both modern and 
ancient, comes long before the mathematical sense, if 
I may so express myself, is developed. Let algebra 
and geometry, then, be deferred until the time for the 
successful and satisfactory pursuit of the reflective and 
intellectual studies is fully reached. 

Noah Porter, 



THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 

I WOULD therefore have physiology taught to all, as a 
study of God's designs and purposes achieved ; as a 
science for which our natural desire after the knowledge 
of final causes seems to have been destined ; a science 
in which that desire, though it were infinite, might be 
satisfied ; and in which, as with perfect models of benefi- 
cence and wisdom, our own faculties of design may be 
instructed. I would not have its teaching limited to a 
bare declaration of the use and exact fitness of each 
part or organ of the body. This, indeed, should not be 
omitted ; for there are noble truths in the simplest 
demonstrations of the fitness of parts for their simplest 



ig2 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

purposes, and no study has been made more attractive 
than this by the ingenuity, the acuteness, and eloquence 
of its teachers. But I would go beyond this, and striv- 
ing, as I said before, to teach general truths as well as 
the details of science, I would try to lead the mind to 
the contemplation of those general designs, from which 
it might gather the best lessons for its own guidance. 

James Paget, 



READING AND RE-READING. 

We read at once too much and too little. Multum, 
non multa. I have tried to say in many words what the 
proverb says in three. Without a pedantic exclusion of 
lesser and lighter matters, let a man or a woman who 
wishes to claim her natural mental rights and position 
read mainly the best books, and begin again when the 
series is ended. Life is not long ; but the available list 
is briefer still. Putting aside the books which give 
special information or discuss points of theory, a few 
shelves would hold all the modern master-works ; how 
few the ancient ! Yet these are enough. For a good 
book not only puts the thoughts of its age in the sweet- 
est and highest form, but includes by a natural implica- 
tion the thousand lesser works contemporary. And 
these again we read with far more gain and amusement 
through familiarity with masterpieces. Knowledge of 
these supplies taste and judgment and standards for 
the pleasant work of comparison. It is books thus read 
which " gives growth to youth and pleasure to age, de- 
light at home, make the night go by, and are friends for 
the road and the country." How modern the words 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



193 



seem ! Yet they tell that one thousand nine hundred 
years ago there were men who comprehended reading. 

E. T. Palgrave. 



A GOOD education is that which gives to the body and 
to the soul all the beauty and all the perfection of which 
they are capable. 



Plato. 



THE HEAD AND THE HAND. 

A Greek proverb says : "A mob has no brains " ; the 
meaning doubtless being either that the only brain con- 
cerned is that of the leader, or that the units composing 
the mob have only one brain in common. In either 
case, disintegration will come the moment each of these 
units can determine its own motive, instead of being 
controlled by a motive of another's imposition. For 
example, in our politics there is a large mobile element, 
the purchasable factor that has as little self-determining 
power as the ballast of a sailing vessel. Could each of 
these " electors " be given the power and the will to do 
his own thinking, the problem of political education 
would be solved. Which is better for the citizen, the 
practical drill of the " primaries," or the serious reading 
of the " Republic " and the " Laws '' 1 It is no paradox 
to say that we should learn to swim, i.e., form an idea, 
pattern, or theory of swimming, before we plunge into 
the water, to the end that we may safely and thoroughly 
learn the art ' of swimming. In other words, we should 
know, to the end that we may do. First the head and 
then the hand ; finally, the hand inspired and guided by 



IQ4 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

the head. In going from the old faith in the potency 
of ideas and ideals, we have degenerated. We are fol- 
lowing false gods. 

William H. Payne. 



Deficiencies in true education are the source of de- 
lusion and of all transgressions, the chief cause of 
violations of the laws of the mind. 



Philo. 



WE LEARN TO DO BY DOING. 

There is great outcry against our schools and col- 
leges, caused by the suspicion that they educate children 
to be above manual labor. This suspicion is founded 
upon fact, I am sorry to say ; but the statement of the 
fact is not correct. Children are educated below manual 
labor. The vague, meaningless things they learn are 
not adapted to real work ; no effectual habits of labor 
are formed by rote-learning. The student's desire is 
too often, when he leaves college, to get a living by 
means of empty words. The world has little or no use 
for such rubbish. That man should gain his bread by 
the sweat of his brow is a curse changed to the highest 
possible blessing. The clergyman, the lawyer, the 
physician, the teacher, need the benefit of an early train- 
ing in manual labor quite as much as the man who is 
to labor with his hands all his life. Manual labor is the 
foundation of clear thinking, sound imagination, and 
good health. There should be no real difference be- 
tween the methods of our common schools and the 
methods of training in manual-labor schools. A great 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



195 



mistake has been made in separating them. All school 
work should be real work. We learn to do by doing. 
"Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do." 
The direct influence of real work is to absorb the atten- 
tion in the things to be done, leaving no room in the 
consciousness for idleness and its consequent vices. 
Out of real work the child develops a motive that 
directs his life work. Doing work thoroughly has a 
great moral influence. One piece of work well done, 
one subject well mastered, makes the mind far stronger 
and better than a smattering of all the branches taught 
in our schools. School work and manual labor have 
been for a long time divorced ; I predict that the time 
is fast coming when they will be joined in indissoluble 
bonds. The time, too, is coming, when ministers will 
urge upon their hearers the great importance of manual 
labor as a means of spiritual growth. At no distant 
date industrial rooms will become an indispensable part 
of every good school ; the work of the head and skill of 
the hand will be joined, in class-room and workshop, into 
one comprehensive method of developing harmoniously 
the powers of body, mind, and soul. If you would de- 
velop morality in the child, train him to work. 

Francis W. Parker. 



EXPERIMENT AND TRANSITION. 

There can be little doubt that the educational world 
is in a period of rapid transition. Correct views of the 
nature and end of education are becoming prevalent ; 
and in order that educational methods may have a 



ig6 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

scientific basis, the physical and mental constitution of 
man is being subjected anew to careful investigation. 
The laws governing human development have been 
largely ascertained, and now give direction to our best 
teaching. The work of education is no longer left to 
novices destitute of any training, except an acquaintance 
with the defective methods by which they were them- 
selves instructed. Teaching is being elevated into a 
profession, for which intelligence and training are recog- 
nized as necessary. There is a breaking away from 
traditional views and customs. Human reason, un- 
fettered by tradition or the dicta of authority, is every- 
where proving all things, and holding fast only that 
which is good. The present is an age of experiment 
and investigation. Able minds in all Christian lands are 
engaged upon educational problems. While all this 
leaves the educational world in an unsettled condition, 
it promises well for the future. Within the past few 
decades, truth has made large conquests in the domain 
of education. And as we may well judge, both from 
the lessons of the past and the tendencies of the present, 
there will come forth from this struggle an education 
firmly established on a scientific basis, and better ad- 
justed to the conditions of modern life. 

F. v. N. Painter. 



FREEDOM, NOT FORCE. 

A FREE mind ought to learn nothing as a slave. The 
lesson that is made to enter the mind by force will not 
remain there. Then use no violence towards children ; 
the rather, cause them to learn while playing. 

Plato. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 1 97 

Although one man may possess more capacity than 
another, yet none can be found who cannot by educa- 
tion be improved at all, ' 

QUINTILIAN. 



THE TEACHING OF THE JESUITS. 

The object which the Jesuits proposed in their teach- 
ing was not the highest object. They did not aim at 
developing all the faculties of their pupils, but merely 
the receptive and reproductive faculties. When a 
young man had acquired a thorough mastery of the 
Latin language for all purposes, when he was well 
versed in the theological and philosophical opinions of 
his preceptors, when he was skilful in dispute, and could 
make a brilliant display from the resources of a well- 
stored memory, he had reached the highest point to 
which the Jesuits sought to lead him. Originality and 
independence of mind, love of truth for its own sake, 
the power of reflecting and of forming correct judg- 
ments, were not merely neglected, — they were sup- 
pressed in the Jesuits' system. But in what they 
attempted they were eminently successful, and their 
success went a long way toward securing their popu- 
larity. 

Robert Herbert Quick. 



RATICH AND ASCHAM COMPARED. 

When we compare Ratich's method with that of 
Ascham, we find that they have much in common. 
Ratich began the study of a language with one book, 
which he worked over with the pupil a great many 
times. Ascham did the same. Each lecture, he says, 



198 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

would, according to his plan, be gone over a dozen times 
at least. Both construed to the pupil, instead of requir- 
ing him to make out the sense for himself. Both taught 
grammar, not independently, but in connection with the 
model book. So far as the two methods differed, I have 
no hesitation in pronouncing Ascham's the better. It 
gave the pupil more to do, and contained the very im- 
portant element, — writing. By this means there was a 
chance of the interest of the pupil surviving the constant 
repetition ; but Ratich's pupils must have been bored 
to death. His plan of making them familiar with the 
translation first was subsequently advocated by Come- 
nius, and may have advantages ; but in effect the pupil 
would be tired of the play before he began to translate 
it. Then Ratich's plan of going through and through 
seems very inferior to that of thoroughly mastering one 
lesson before going on to the next. I should say that 
whatever merit there was in Ratich's plan lay in its 
insisting on complete knowledge of a single book, and 
that this knowledge would be much better attained by 
Ascham's practice of double translation. 

Robert Herbert Quick. 

PHILIP'S TEACHER. 

Would Philip, king of Macedonia, have wished the 
first principles of learning to be communicated to his 
son Alexander, by Aristotle, the greatest philosopher 
of that age, or would Aristotle have undertaken that 
ofBce, if they had not both thought that the first rudi- 
ments of instruction are best treated by the most ac- 
complished teacher, and have an influence on the whole 
course ? quintiuan. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



199 



Said a king to his son : " Be diligent in learning all 
arts, in acquiring ail manner of knowledge. If you 
come to need, then they will be your capital ; if you do 
not, they will always be accomplishments." 



RUECKERT. 



ENRICHING THE MIND. 

The mind is but a barren soil ; a soil which is soon 
exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless 
it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign 
matter. 

When we have had continually before us the great 
works of art to impregnate our minds with ideas, we 
are then, and not till then, fit to produce something of 
the same species. We behold all about us with the 
eyes of those penetrating observers whose works we 
contemplate ; and our minds, accustomed to think the 
thoughts of the noblest and brightest intellects, are 
prepared for the discovery and selection of all that is 
great and noble in nature. The greatest natural genius 
cannot subsist on its own stock ; he who resolves never 
to ransack any mind but his own will be soon reduced 
from mere barrenness to the poorest of all imitations ; 
he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to repeat what 
he has before often repeated. When we know the sub- 
ject designed by such men, it will never be difficult to 
guess what kind of work is to be produced. 

A MIND enriched by an assemblage of all the treas- 
ures of ancient and modern art will be more elevated 
and fruitful in resources, in proportion to the number 



200 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

of ideas which have been carefully collected and thor- 
oughly digested. There can be no doubt but that he 
who has the most materials has the greatest means of 
invention ; and if he has not the power of using them, 
it must proceed from a feebleness of intellect ; or from 
the confused manner in which those collections have 
been laid up in his mind. The addition of other men's 
judgment is so far from weakening our Q,wn, as is the 
opinion of many, that it will fashion and consolidate 
those ideas of excellence which lay in embryo, feeble, 
i]l-shaped, and confused, but which are finished and put 
in order by the authority and practice of those whose 
works may be said to have been consecrated by having 
stood the test of ages. 

The mind, or genius, has been compared to a spark of 
fire, which is smothered by a heap of fuel, and prevented 
from blazing into a flame. This simile, which is made 
use of by the younger Pliny, may be easily mistaken for 
argument or proof. But there is no danger of the 
mind's being overburthened with knowledge, or the 
genius extinguished by any addition of images ; on the 
contrary, these acquisitions may as well, perhaps better, 
be compared — if comparisons signified anything in rea- 
soning — to the supply of living embers, which will con- 
tribute to strengthen the spark that, without the asso- 
ciation of more fuel, would have died away. The truth 
is, he whose feebleness is such as to make other men's 
thoughts an incumbrance to him, can have no very great 
strength of mind or genius of his own to be destroyed, 
SO that not much harm will be done at worst. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 20i 

We cannot imagine a complete education of man 
without music. It is the gymnastic of the affections. 
In suitable connection with exercise, it is necessary to 
keep body and soul in health. 

Jean Paul Richter. 



THINGS, NOT WORDS. 

Do not treat the child to discourses which he cannot 
understand : no descriptions, no eloquence, no figures 
of speech. Be content to present to him appropriate 
objects. Let us transform our sensations into ideas. 
But let us not jump at once from sensible objects to 
intellectual objects. Let us always proceed slowly from 
one sensible notion to another. In general, let us never 
substitute the sign for the thing, except when it is im- 
possible for us to show the thing. I have no love what- 
ever for explanations and talk. Things ! things ! I 
shall never tire of saying that we ascribe too much 
importance to words. 

J. J. Rousseau. 



MAN AND NATURE. 

As to the knowledge of the facts of nature, I would 
have you devote yourself to them with great care, so 
that there shall be neither sea, river, nor fountain whose 
fish you do not know. All the birds of the air ; all the 
trees, shrubs, and fruits of the forests ; all the grasses of 
the earth ; all the metals concealed in the depths of the 
abysses, the precious stones of the entire East and 
South, — none of these should be unknown to you. By 
frequent dissections, acquire a knowledge of the other 



202 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

world, which is man. In a word, I point out a new 
world of knowledge. 

Francois Rabelais. 



A HARD MODE OF THOUGHT. 

Natural science, when its pursuit is one-sided, like 
every other activity so pursued, narrows the field of 
view. Natural science, under such circumstances, con- 
fines the glance to that which lies immediately at hand 
and within reach, to what offers itself as the immediate 
result of sense-perception with apparently unconditional 
certainty. It turns the mind aside from more general, 
less certain observations, and disaccustoms it to exer- 
cise itself in the realm of the quantitatively indetermin- 
able. In a certain sense, we extol this as an invalu- 
able virtue of science ; but where it is exclusively 
dominant, the mind is apt to grow poor in ideas, the 
imagination in pictures, the soul in sensitiveness, and 
the result is a narrow, dry, and hard mode of thought 
deserted by the Muses and the Graces. 

E. Du Bois-Reymond. 



LEARNING WITH EFFORT. 

We acquire without doubt notions more clear and 
certain of things we thus learn of ourselves than of 
those we are taught by others. Another advantage 
also resulting from this method is, that we do not 
accustom ourselves to a servile submission to the 
authority of others, but by exercising our reason, 
grow every day more ingenious in the discovery of 
the relations of things, in connecting our ideas, and 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



203 



in the contrivance of machines ; whereas, by adopting 
those which are put into our hands, our invention grows 
dull and indifferent, as the man who never dresses him- 
self, but is served in everything by his servants, and 
drawn about everywhere by his horses, loses by degrees 
the activity and use of his limbs. Boileau boasted that 
he had taught Racine to rhyme with difficulty. Among 
the many admirable methods taken to abridge the study 
of the sciences, we we are in great want of one to make 
us learn them with effort. 

J. J. Rousseau. 



TALENT AND GENIUS. 

Mediocrity characterizes the great mass of intelli- 
gences that are merely mechanical, and that wait for 
external impulse as to what direction their endeavors 
shall take. Not without truth, perhaps, may we hypo- 
thetically presuppose a special talent in each individual ; 
but this special talent in many men never makes its 
appearance, because under the circumstances in which 
it finds itself placed, it fails to find the exciting occa- 
sion which shall give them the knowledge of its exist- 
ence. The majority of mankind are contented with the 
mechanical impulse which makes them something, and 
impresses upon them certain characteristics. Talent 
shows itself by means of the confidence in its own 
especial productive possibility, which manifests itself 
as an inclination, or as a strong impulse, to occupy 
itself with the special object which constitutes the object 
of its ability. Education has no difficulty in dealing 
with mechanical natures, because their passivity is 



204 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



only too ready to follow prescribed patterns. It is 
more difficult to manage talent, because it lies between 
mediocrity and genius, and is therefore uncertain, and 
not only unequal to itself, but also is tossed now too 
low, now too high ; is by turns despondent and over- 
excited. The general maxim for dealing with it is to 
spare it no difficulty that lies in the subject to which its 
efforts are directed. Genius must be treated much in 
the same way as talent. The difference consists only 
in this : that genius, with a premonition of its creative 
power, usually manifests its decision with less doubt for 
a special province of activity, and, with a more intense 
thirst for culture, subjects itself more willingly to the 
demands of instruction. Genius is in its nature the 
purest self-determination, in that it feels in its own 
inner existence the necessity which exists in the object 
to which it devotes itself ; it lives, as it were, in its 
object. But it can create no valid place for the new 
idea, which is in it already immediately and subjec- 
tively, if it has not united itself to the already existing 
culture as its objective presupposition ; on this ground 
it thankfully receives instruction. 

JoHANN Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz. 



ON TEACHING MATHEMATICS. 

What we contend for, therefore, is that the teacher 
of mathematics should himself study them not exclu- 
sively, but in their relation to philosophy, to logic, to 
the arts, and to history. In no other way can he have 
the materials, sphere, and nature of mathematical rea- 
soning so distinctly and sharply defined in his own 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 



205 



mind as not to confound it in the class-room with other 
departments of education. We contend, further, that 
in teaching he should not presume that his pupils, even 
the best of them, will see all the points in which this 
science touches other sciences and the arts. Unaided, 
very few indeed will discover any relation between 
mathematical formulas and logical forms of thought ; 
between the science of optics and the various arts 
founded upon it. . . . Five minutes' sharp discussion, 
here and there, by a professor whose mind is full of 
such thoughts as we have ventured to suggest, will rob 
the mathematical course of that reputation for dryness 
and tediousness which it so universally bears. Students 
will cease to be mere reciters, and become real in- 
quirers. What is so co-ordinated with the other de- 
partments of a liberal course of study will be continu- 
ally brought to the mind, till it is fixed never to be 
forgotten. 

Otis H. Robinson. 



There is no free-trade measure which will ever lower 
the price of brains ; there is no California of common 
sense. 

John Ruskin. 



A DESIRABLE FACULTY/ 

The faculty of perceiving what powers are required 
for the production of a thing is the faculty of perceiving 
excellence, in which men, even of the most cultivated 
taste, must always be wanting, unless they have added 
practice to reflection ; because none can estimate the 
power manifested in victory unless they have personally 



2o6 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. • 

measured the strength to be overcome. Though it is 
possible by the cultivation of sensibility and judgment 
to become capable of distinguishing what is beautiful, it 
is totally impossible without practice and knowledge to 
distinguish or feel what is excellent. The beauty or the 
truth of Titian's flesh-tint may be appreciated by all ; 
but it is only to the artist, whose multiplied hours of 
toil have not reached the slightest resemblance of one 
of its tones, that its excellence is manifest. 

John Ruskin. 



He among us who best knows how to bear the good 
and evil fortunes of this life is, in my opinion, the best 
educated ; whence it follows that true education consists 
less in precept than in practice. 



J. J. Rousseau. 



A GREAT NEED. 



Of nothing am I more thoroughly convinced than that 
the most radical defect to-day in our American colleges 
is a want of due attention to rhetorical studies, under- 
standing by these studies not only practice in the arts 
of composition and of speech, the patient acquisition of 
power to think justly, and to express one's thoughts 
accurately, but also the acquisition of that literary taste, 
that knowledge of English literature, and that apprecia- 
tion of its riches, without which facility and skill in the 
use of our tongue are never attainable. The number of 
men annually graduating from our colleges with very 
creditable attainments as to both extent and accuracy 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



207 



of knowledge, but showing a lamentable incapacity for 
systematic thinking and for clear, forcible, and correct, 
not to say elegant, expression of their thoughts, is one 
of the standing reproaches to our American education. 
The only remedy appears to be in a more thorough and 
continuous training in those studies which are known as 
rhetorical, and which consist in an incessant critical study 
and practice of the English tongue. Years and years of 
closest study are given to other tongues, both ancient 
and modern, tongues which only a fraction of educated 
men are expected to use in after life, while only inci- 
dental and comparatively superficial attention is given 
to that mother tongue which all are compelled to use 
in speech or in writing every day of their lives, and on 
a skilled use of which, with many, depend, to no small 
degree, their success or failure in life. And in saying 
this, it is not forgotten that for the enlargement of one's 
knowledge of English words, and for the cultivation of 
that nice discrimination between synonymes which only 
the most careful study of language can impart, — a dis- 
crimination which shows itself as one of the striking 
characteristics of the classics of every people, — nothing 
has yet been discovered, or is ever likely to be discov- 
ered, that can take the place of the critical study of the 
classical literatures of the Greeks and Romans. But 
the fact cannot be disguised that many an excellent 
Latin and Greek scholar writes wretched English, while 
admirable English is written by many who know neither 
Latin nor Greek. What our colleges most need is not 
neglect of the classics of the ancients, but more atten- 
tion to the classics of our own tongue ; an attention that 
shall consist not merely in a study of its best authors, 



2o8 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

but of that unremitted and critical practice, without 
which, in literature as in everything else, no high de- 
gree of excellence is ever attained. 

EzEKiEL G. Robinson. 



THE ART OF READING. 

The very first thing to be remembered by him who 
would study the art of reading is that nothing can take 
the place of personal enthusiasm and personal work. 
However wise may be the friendly adviser, and however 
full and perfect the chosen handbook of reading, neither 
can do more than to stimulate and suggest ; nothing can 
take the place of a direct familiarity with books them- 
selves. To know one good book well is better than to 
know something about a hundred good books at second 
hand. The taste for reading and the habit of reading 
must always be developed from within ; they can never 
be given from without. 

All plans and systems of reading, therefore, should be 
taken as far as possible into one's heart of hearts, and 
be made a part of his own mind and thought. Unless 
this can be done, they are worse than useless. Dr. 
McCosh says : *'The book to read is not the one that 
thinks for you, but the one which makes you think." 
It is plain, then, that a "course of reading" may be a 
great good or a great evil, according to its use. The 
late Bishop Alonzo Potter, one of the most judicious of 
literary helpers, offered to readers this sound piece of 
advice : " Do not be so enslaved by any system or 
course of study, as to think it may not be altered." 
However conscious one may be of his own deficiencies, 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



209 



and however he may feel the needs of outside aid, he 
should never permit his own independence and self- 
respect to be obliterated. "He who reads incessantly," 
says Milton, 

•' And to his reading brings not 
A spirit and judgment equal or superior, 
Uncertain and unsettled still remains, 
Deep versed in books, but shallow in himself." 

The general agreement of intelligent people as to the 
merit of an author or the worth of a book, is, of course, 
to be accepted until one finds some valid reason for 
reversing it. But nothing is to be gained by pretending 
to like what one really dislikes, or to enjoy what one 
does not find profitable or even intelligible. If a reader 
is not honest and sincere in this matter, there is small 
hope for him. The lowest taste may be cultivated and 
improved, and radically changed ; but pretence and 
artificiality can never grow into anything better. They 
must be wholly rooted out at the start. If you dislike 
Shakespeare's "Hamlet," and greatly enjoy a trashy 
story, say so with sincerity and sorrow, if occasion 
requires, and hope and work for a reversal of your 
taste. 

It should always be borne in mind that the busiest 
reader must leave unread all but a mere fraction of the 
good books in the world. . . . Since this is so, he must 
be very thoughtless and very timid who feels any shame 
in confessing that he is wholly ignorant of a great many 
books; and on the other hand, none but a very super- 
ficial and conceited reader will venture to express sur- 
prise at the deficiencies of others, when a little thought 



2IO EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

would make his own so clearly manifest. In Cowper's 
words : 

" Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much ; 
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more." 

Charles F. Richardson. 



HEART EDUCATION. 

Crime, small and great, can only be truly stayed by 
education, — not the education of the intellect only, which 
is on some men wasted, and for others mischievous, but 
education for the heart, which is alike good and neces- 
sary for all. 

John Ruskin. 



NOT A SLAVE TO MAXIMS. 

Cultivate universality of taste. There is no surer 
mark of a half-educated mind than the incapacity of 
admiring various forms of excellence. Men who can- 
not praise Dryden without dispraising Coleridge ; nor 
feel the stern, earthly truthfulness of Crabbe without 
disparaging the wild, ethereal, impalpable music of 
Shelley ; nor exalt Spenser except by sneering at 
Tennyson, are precisely the persons to whom it 
should in consistency seem strange that in God's 
world there is a place for the eagle and the wren, a 
separate grace to the swan and the humming-bird, their 
own fragrance to the cedar and the violet. Enlarge 
your tastes that you may enlarge your hearts as well as 
your pleasures ; feel all that is beautiful, love all that 
is good. The first maxim in religion and in art is: 
Sever yourself from all sectarianism ; pledge yourself 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 21I 

to no school ; cut your life adrift from all party ; be a 
slave to no maxims ; stand forth unfettered and free, 
servant only to the truth. And if you say, " But this 
will force each of us to stand alone," I reply: "Yes, 
grandly alone ! untrammelled by the prejudices of any, 
and free to admire the beauty and love the goodness 
of them all." 

Frederick W. Robertson. 



A WARNING. 



Education may be, instead of a great blessing, a 
great curse. We are training boys and girls too rapidly. 
We have a thousand candidates for one place. The 
nine hundred and ninety-nine live, then, by their wits, 
and the wits are turned to fraud and sensationalism. 
This is not an argument against education, but a warn- 
ing. ''Make it healthy and safe." 

Lord Shaftesbury. 



AN UNSOLVED PROBLEM. 

The teacher of an evening school has no easy task. 
He has widely various minds to deal with. Grouping 
the pupils by similarities of conditions and needs goes 
but little way to help him. To succeed in teaching 
such a heterogeneous company, he needs more than 
ordinary skill, versatility, and good sense. The mere 
routine that day-school teachers sometimes fall into 
utterly breaks down here. And yet the appointing 
powers too often act as if inferior qualifications were 
good enough for teachers of evening schools. Teach- 
ers who have failed in the day schools or who are 



212 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

thought to be unfit for appointment there, are allowed 
to try their hand at the no less delicate task of teaching 
evening-school pupils. A good deal of the work in 
evening schools is done by those who are not and do 
not intend to become teachers by profession. Their 
chief interest lies in some other profession ; and they 
resort to teaching for the time being as a means of 
partial support. They may or may not be good teach- 
ers. If they are, well and good ; if they are not, it is 
bad for the school, however convenient the stipends 
may be for themselves. How to provide the evening- 
school service with a sufficient body of professionally 
trained teachers, — able persons who have adopted 
teaching as a life-work, — is yet one of the unsolved 
problems. 

E. P. Seaver. 



THE TEACHER OF THE FUTURE. 

Now, looking forward fifty years, instead of back- 
ward, and judging from the present tendencies, what 
can we affirm that the teacher of the future is to be, 
what his qualifications, and what his professional career .f* 
It will be safe to say that he must possess some natural 
aptitude for the office : a bright intellect and warm 
heart ; a knowledge of things beyond what is required 
to be taught ; a professional training or its equivalent ; 
a winning presence in person and manners ; in short, 
a model character intellectually, morally, and socially. 
Such will be the requisites for an appointment. 

To retain his place he must never cease to be a pro- 
gressive man. His professional education must never 
be suffered to come to an end. He must read the great 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



213 



thoughts of great writers on the nature of the mind 
to be educated, on social organization, on the demands 
of an advancing age ; must in some measure keep up 
with the world in popular science and literature ; he 
must enrich his mind by studying the lives and suc- 
cess of great educators of the past, and know something 
of the results of the experiments of successful, living 
teachers. 

Above all, he must in his daily work observe and 
experiment for himself, just as if he were a self-made 
teacher, remembering the words of Richter, *' All is but 
lip-wisdom that wants experience." His inquisitive eye 
must watch and note all that passes before his eye in 
the little world under his care. That is his laboratory 
for analyzing human character, his practical school of 
philosophy. He will daily test and revise his own 
work, and feel his way along like the careful investi- 
gating philosopher, generalizing the results of his own 
observation and experiments, and then verifying his 
generalizations by new tests. Something of this kind 
is within the reach of every one who is born and edu- 
cated to be a teacher. 

Barnas Sears. 



EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS A GROWTH. 

No one particular age can prescribe the methods for 
succeeding ages ; no one nation for all succeeding na- 
tions ; no one race for all other races. Schools are an 
organic growth of society. They represent more or 
less perfectly the wants and spirit of a nation. Modern 
methods of teaching should therefore represent the 



214 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



existing state of knowledge and civilization, not the 
obsolete learning or methods of past ages ; but tradi- 
tional culture, like customs, manners, habits, and laws, 
too often holds sway long after the causes that organ- 
ized it have ceased to act. " Like political constitu- 
tions," says Herbert Spencer, " educational systems are 
not made, but grow ; and within brief periods growth 
is insensible." 

While it cannot be claimed as yet that teaching is a 
fully developed science, great progress has been made 
in formulating the principles that underlie the best of 
our present methods of instruction. Educational his- 
tory is full of errors, most of which were the result of 
empirical methods. Experience in this field, as in 
every other, in order to be of any value, must be the 
result of experiments directed by the light of science, 
and must have for its objective point the welfare of 
every child in the nation. 

John Swett. 



LIFE-EDUCATION. 



Daily experience shows that it is energetic individu- 
alism which produces the most powerful effects upon the 
life and action of others, and really constitutes the best 
practical education. Schools, academies, colleges, give 
but the merest beginnings of culture in comparison with 
it. Far more influential is the life-education daily given 
in our homes, in the streets, behind counters, in work- 
shops, at the loom and the plough, in counting-houses 
and manufactories, and in the busy haunts of men. 
This is that finishing instruction as members of society, 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 21 S 

which Schiller designated " the education of the human 
race," consisting in action, conduct, self-culture, self- 
control, — all that tends to discipline a man truly, and 
fit him for the proper performance of the duties and 
business of life, — a kind of education not to be learned 
from books or acquired by any amount of mere literary 
training. With his usual weight of words. Bacon ob- 
serves that *' studies teach not their own use ; but that 
is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by 
observation"; a remark that holds true of actual life, 
as well as of the cultivation of the intellect itself. For 
all experience serves to illustrate and enforce the lesson 
that a man perfects himself by work more than by read- 
ing ; that it is life rather than literature, action rather 
than study, and character rather than biography, which 
tend perpetually to renovate mankind. 

Samuel Smiles. 



THE HOME OR THE NATION. 

Every human being has duties to be performed, and 
therefore has need of cultivating the capacity for doing 
them, whether the sphere of action be the management 
of a household, the conduct of a trade or profession, or 
the government of a nation. 

Samuel Smiles. 



IMPORTANT KNOWLEDGE AND BELLES-LETTRES. 

However fully we may admit that extensive acquain- 
tance with modern languages is a valuable accomplish- 
ment, which, through reading, conversation, and travel, 
aids in giving a certain finish, it by no means follows 



2i6 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

that this result is rightly purchased at the cost of that 
vitally important knowledge sacrificed to it. Supposing 
it true that classical education conduces to elegance and 
correctness of style, it cannot be said that elegance 
and correctness of style are comparable in importance 
to a familiarity with the principles that should guide 
the rearing of children. Grant that the taste may be 
greatly improved by reading all the poetry written in 
extinct languages ; yet it is not to be inferred that such 
improvement of taste is equivalent in value to an ac- 
quaintance with the laws of health. Accomplishments, 
the fine arts, belles-lettres^ and all those things which, as 
we say, constitute the effloresence of civilization, should 
be wholly subordinate to that knowledge and discipline 
in which civilization rests. As they occupy the leisure 
part of lifey so should they occupy the leisure part of edu- 
cation. 

Herbert Spencer. 

AN ELEMENT OF POWER. 

Of one thing every teacher may be certain : that 
scolding and chronic fault-finding will not win the hearts 
of the young. Scolding turns a schoolroom into a pan- 
demonium, and distils gall instead of sweetness into 
the work of the teacher. Every teacher of young 
pupils should put herself under bonds to be good- 
natured. We well know that the physical conditions 
and material surroundings often exert a powerful influ- 
ence and have a strong tendency to disturb the equa- 
nimity and exasperate the feelings of the teacher. All 
of these things must be overcome, the nerves must not 
be unstrung, the spirit must be controlled and kept in a 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



217 



state of peace, if we would, as teachers, lift the burdens 
from the hearts of our children. Patient persistency in 
the use of kindness and gentle speech is an element of 
power in the teacher. Yes ! young teacher, you may 
be firm, but you must be also very kind, if you would 
send rays of sunshine into young hearts and win their 
lasting affection and esteem. One has truly said, 
'' Kind words are more than gems from Golconda, or 
pearls from the sea." 

William E. Sheldon. 



ESTHETIC TRAINING. 

The cultivation of the aesthetic sentiment may enter 
into almost every department of education. On one 
side it stands in close connection with intellectual train- 
ing. The feeling for what is graceful or elegant may 
be developed to some extent in connection with such 
seemingly prosaic exercises as learning to read and to 
write ; and by this means a certain artistic interest may 
be infused into the occupation. The teaching of the 
use of the mother tongue in vocal recitation and written 
composition offers a wider field for the exercise of the 
aesthetic sense, in a growing feeling for rhetorical effect 
and for literary style. Many branches of study tend to 
develop the aesthetic feelings, and owe much of their 
interest to this circumstance. This is pre-eminently 
true of classical studies and of literature generally, 
which, as already pointed out, specially exercise the 
imagination on its aesthetic side. Physical geography 
may be so taught as to elicit a feeling for the pictur- 
esque and the sublime in natural scenery, and history, 
so as to call forth a feeling of sympathetic appreciation 



2i8 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

for the picturesque lights and shadows of human life 
and experience, and admiration for what is great and 
noble in human conduct and character. Even the more 
abstract studies, as geometry and physical science, may 
be made a means of evoking and strengthening a feel- 
ing for what is beautiful, not only in material objects 
{e.g., regularity and symmetry in geometric figures, 
beauties of form and color in minerals, plants, and ani- 
mals), but in ideas and their logical relations. 

On another side, the training of the aesthetic sense 
comes into contact with moral training. To adopt and 
practise in mode of dress, in speech, and generally in 
manners, what is agreeable to the aesthetic feelings of 
others, is a matter of so much social importance that it 
is rightly looked on as one of the lesser moral obliga- 
tions. Hence the stress laid in the early period of 
training on the cultivation of naturalness and fitness in 
carriage, movement, and speech, on neatness in dress, 
etc., and on the graces of courtesy. 

It is to be observed finally that, in training the aes- 
thetic faculty, a natural order is to be followed, answering 
to the development of faculty. Thus, it is evident that 
tune singing, or singing in unison, must precede part 
singing, which presupposes the development of a sense 
of musical harmony. Similarly, a certain training in 
the use of colors may appropriately precede exercises in 
drawing. 

James Sully. 



SCHOOL KNOWLEDGE AND DAILY LIFE. 

No part of a child's school knowledge can be safely 
allowed to remain long detached from its daily life. The 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



219 



history and geography of lesson books must join on to 
that of the newspapers ; it is almost worse to know the 
name and date of a writer or a hero, without an inde- 
pendent familiarity with the nature of his books or 
actions, than to be frankly ignorant of all at once ; and 
in every branch of science it is admitted that a knowl- 
edge of definitions and formulae is useless apart from 
experimental acquaintance with the actual bodies de- 
scribed. An inaccurate general knowledge that would 
not stand the test of examination may, even in some 
cases, have more educational value than a few correct 
and barren facts ; and our educational results will not 
be thoroughly satisfactory, if detailed information is 
imparted faster than circumstantial impressions about 
its color and bearing. 

Miss Edith Sjmcox. 



WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE. 

Now for the philosophy which relates to knowledge. 
Knowledge is a brave thing. I am a plain, ignorant, 
untaught man, and know my ignorance. But it is a 
brave thing when we look around us in this wonderful 
world, to understand something of what we see ; to know 
something of the earth on which we move, the air which 
we breathe, and the elements whereof we are made ; to 
comprehend the motions of the moon and stars, and 
measure the distances between them, and compute times 
and seasons ; to observe the laws which sustain the 
universe by keeping all things in their courses ; to search 
into the mysteries of nature, and discover the hidden 
virtue of plants and stones, and read the signs and 
tokens which are shown us, and make out the meaning 



220 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

of hidden things, and apply all this to the benefit of our 
fellow-creatures. 

Wisdom and knowledge, Daniel, make the difference 
between man and man, and that between man and 
beast is hardly greater. 

These things do not always go "together. There may 
be wisdom without knowledge, and there may be knowl- 
edge without wisdom. A man without knowledge, if 
he walk humbly with his God, and live in charity with 
his neighbors, may be wise unto salvation. A man 
without wisdom may not find his knowledge avail him 
quite so well. But it is he who possesses both that is 
the true philosopher. The more he knows, the more he 
is desirous of knowing ; and yet the further he advances 
in knowledge the better he understands how little he 
can attain, and the more deeply he feels that God alone 
can satisfy the infinite desires of an immortal soul. To 
understand this is the perfection of philosophy. 

Robert Southey. 



THE HEAD AND THE HEART. 

It is not merely true that all enlightenment of the un- 
derstanding is valuable only so far as it reacts upon the 
character. It also proceeds, to a certain extent, from 
the character ; for the road to the head must pass 
through the heart. 

J. C. F. Schiller. 



SUBSIDIZING ALL SOURCES. 

The teacher should always be a pupil. That catho- 
licity of faith and that humility which always mark the 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 221 

sincere seeker after truth only come to him who is ever 
in quest of the truth. The moment one ceases to be a 
student, he practically shuts himself up within the limits 
of his own narrow sphere, while the great universe of 
truth is all without and beyond him. One of the great- 
est mistakes that we have ever made in this work of 
education is in supposing that the so-called limits of 
the studies pursued in our schools fix practically the 
boundaries of the knowledge to be possessed by the 
teachers. 

While it is too true that the mere shell of instruction, 
as laid down in a course of study, may be given by one 
who knows but little more himself, it is equally certain 
that the true education, the real instruction, the " build- 
ing up " of the youthful mind in symmetry and in 
strength, is too often a sad and lamentable failure. In 
the day of final reckoning, how many minds shall be 
found to have been darkened ; how many aspirations to 
have been quenched ; how many careers of honor and 
usefulness to have been turned to failure or even dis- 
grace, by the refusal or inability of the early teacher to 
respond to what were then called the whims of childish 
fancy, or the thoughtless word } Let it, then, be your 
worthy ambition to subsidize all realms of attainable 
truth to' your work. No matter how humble your 
sphere, or how contracted, you are dealing with im- 
mortal souls, whose possibilities are alone known to 
their Creator. Like Paul and Apollos, the apostles 
and teachers of olden time, it is for you to plant and 
water and nourish ; but it is God that giveth the in- 
crease. 

Thomas B. Stockwell. 



222 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? 

What knowledge is of most worth ? The uniform 
reply is — science. This is the verdict on all the 
counts. For direct self-preservation, or the maintenance 
of life and health, the all-important knowledge is — 
science. For that indirect self-preservation which we 
call gaining a livelihood, the knowledge of greatest value 
is — science. For the due discharge of parental func- 
tions, the proper guidance is to be found only in — 
science. For that interpretation of national life, past 
and present, without which the citizen cannot rightly 
regulate his conduct, the indispensable key is — science. 
Alike for the most perfect production and highest en- 
joyment of art in all its forms, the needful preparation 
is still — science. And for purposes of discipline — 
intellectual, moral, religious — the most efficient study 
is, once more — science. The question which at first 
seemed so perplexed, has become, in the course of our 
inquiry, comparatively simple. We have not to estimate 
the degrees of importance of different orders of human 
activity, and different studies as severally fitting us for 
them, since we find that the study of science, in its 
most comprehensive meaning, is the best preparation 
for all these orders of activity. We have not to decide 
between the claims of knowledge of great though con- 
ventional value, and knowledge of less though intrinsic 
value ; seeing that the knowledge which we find to be 
of most value in all other respects is intrinsically most 
valuable ; its worth is not dependent upon opinion, but 
is as fixed as is the relation of man to the surrounding 
world. Necessary and eternal as are its truths, all 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



223 



science concerns all mankind for all time. Equally at 
present, and in the remotest future, must it be of in- 
calculable importance for the regulation of their conduct, 
that men should understand the science of life, physical, 
mental, and social ; and that they should understand all 
other science as a key to the science of life. 

Herbert Spencer. 



THE GIFTS OF A LIBERAL EDUCATION. 

Mr. Spencer seems to ignore the fact that the thing, 
after all, that is of most service to a man in making his 
way in the world is to be, first of all, an intelligent man ; 
and this intelligence it is precisely the purpose of edu- 
cation to give him. He will be able to get his handy 
information for himself afterward, in one direction or 
another, as happens to be most useful to him. The 
ability to read, in the largest and highest sense, that is 
to say, the ability to get the full benefit of other men's 
minds and experience from their written words, and the 
ability to think, — these are gifts bestowed by a liberal 
education, that are worth any amount of a particular set 
of facts. If Aristotle and Bacon were to enter the com- 
pany, we should hardly fail to recognize them as rather 
well-educated men, although their minds would be empty 
of all these facts of modern science that are asserted by 
Mr. Spencer to be the essential conditions of any sound 
education. 

E. R. Sill. 

We ought to be able to say as Richter did : " I have 
made as much of myself as could be made of the stuff, 
and no man should require more." 

Samuel Smiles, 



224 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL CULTURE. 

The problem of determining the exact relation of 
intellectual culture to moral culture is one which has 
perplexed men's minds from the days of Socrates. On 
the one hand, as has been remarked, the enlightenment 
of the intelligence is essential to the growth of a clear 
and finely discriminative moral sense. On the other 
hand, it is possible to exercise the intellect in dealing 
with the formal distinctions of morality without calling 
the moral faculty into full vital activity. 

This practical difficulty presses with peculiar force 
when we come on to the later exercises of moral in- 
struction. The full carrying-out of the process of in- 
forming the moral intelligence naturally conducts to 
the more or less systematic exposition of the ideas and 
truths of ethics. An enlightened conscience is one to 
which the deepest grounds of duty have begun to dis- 
close themselves, and which has approximated to a 
complete and harmonious ideal of goodness by a sys- 
tematic survey and co-ordination of the several divisions 
of human duty and the corresponding directions of 
moral virtue and excellence. Something in the shape 
of ethical exposition is thus called for, when the child 
reaches a certain point in moral progress. But the 
educator must be careful to make this dogmatic instruc- 
tion supplementary to, and not a substitute for, the 
drawing forth of the whole moral faculty on its sensi- 
tive and on its reflective side alike, by the presentation 
of living concrete illustrations of moral truth. Divorced 
from this, it can only degenerate into a dead formal- 
exercise of the logical faculty and the memory. 

James Foully. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



225 



When facts are not organized into faculty, the greater 
the mass of them the more will the mind stagger along 
under its burden, hampered, instead of helped, by its 

acquisitions. Herbert Spencer. 

NATURAL ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT. 
The first essential in education is that the knowledge 
of the worlds the attainment of which is the aim of true 
education, should begin at the right end. And how 
this is to be realized is also obvious ; in every subject 
intuitions shonld precede general ideas, and the 7tarrower 
idea the wider one, and thus the whole structure of 
knowledge be built up in the exact order in which one 
thought suggests another. The instant a link in the 
chain of thought is omitted, there arise imperfect ideas, 
and from imperfect ideas false ideas, and finally dis- 
torted views of the world, of a kind more or less pe- 
culiar to the individual, and such as we see most people 
carrying in their heads for a long time, in a majority of 
cases through life. He who examines himself will dis- 
cover that the correct or the clear comprehension of 
many simple matters and relations first dawned upon 
him at a late period in life, and sometimes very sud- 
denly. Now these were dark spots in his knowledge of 
the world, owing their origin to omitted links in the 
chain of thought in early education, whether natural or 
artificial. We ought, therefore, to try to discover the 
natural order in the development of ideas in the differ- 
ent branches of knowledge, and then we ought to 
impart to children knowledge about things and the 
relations of things methodically and in harmony with 

tniS Oraer. Arthur Schopenhauer. 



226 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

A STRONG HEAD AND A SOUND HEART. 

History teaches one plain and mournful lesson : 
that man cannot safely be left to his luxurious tenden- 
cies, be they of the sense or of the soul. There must 
be austerity somewhere. There must be a strong head 
and a sound heart somewhere. And where ought we 
to look for these but in the educated classes } In 
whom, if not in these, ought we to find that theory of 
education, that style of culture, and that tone of intel- 
lect which will right up society when it is sinking down 
into luxury, or hold it up where it is, if it is already 
upright and austere } Educated men, amid the currents 
and in the general drift of society, ought to discharge 
the function of a warp and anchor. They, of all men, 
ought to be characterized by strength. And especially 
do our own age and country need this style of culture. 
Exposed as the national mind is to a luxurious civiliza- 
tion, as imminently exposed as Nineveh or Rome ever 
were, the Beautiful is by no means the main idea by 
which it should be educated and moulded. As in the 
Prometheus, none but the demi-gods Strength and 
Force can chain the Titan. Our task, as men of cul- 
ture and as men who are to determine the prevailing 
type of culture, is both in theory and practice to subject 
the Form to the Substance ; to bring the Beautiful 
under the problem of the True and the Good. Our 
task, as descendants of an austere ancestry, as partakers 
in a severe nationality, is to retain the strict, heroic, 
intellectual, and religious spirit of the Puritan and the 
Pilgrim in these forms of an advancing civilization. 
In order to this, in order that the sensuously and luxu- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 227 

riously Beautiful may not be too much for us, strength 
and reserve are needed in the cultivated classes. They 
must be reticent, and, like the sculptor, chisel and re- 
chisel, until they cut off and cut down to a simple and 
severe beauty in Art and in Literature, in Religion and 
in Life. 

WiLUAM G. T. Shedd. 

MANY IN ONE. 

Learning is a world, not a chaos. The various accu- 
mulations of human knowledge are not so many de- 
tached masses. They are all connected parts of one 
great system of truth ; and though that system be 
infinitely too comprehensive for any one of us to com- 
pass, yet each component member of it bears to every 
other component member relations which each of us 
may, in his own department of study, search out and 
discover for himself. A man is really and soundly 
learned in exact proportion to the number and to the 
importance of those relations which he has thus care- 
fully examined and accurately understood. 

Sir James Stephen. 



ACCURACY. 



For every purpose, whether for action or speculation, 
I hold that quality to be most valuable which it is quite 
within our own power to acquire, and which Nature, 
unassisted, never yet gave to any man, — I mean a 
perfectly accurate habit of thought and expression. 
Such is, as far as I can see, one of the very rarest 
acquirements. 

Lord Stanley. 



228 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

IN EXILE. 

There is no land where man cannot dwell, no land 
where he cannot uplift his eyes to heaven ; wherever we 
are, the distance of the divine from the human remains 
the same. So then, as long as my eyes are not robbed 
of that spectacle with which they cannot be satiated, so 
long as I may look upon the sun and moon, and fix my 
lingering gaze on the other constellations, and consider 
their rising and setting and the spaces between them 
and the causes of their less and greater speed, — while 
I may contemplate the multitude of stars glittering 
throughout the heaven, some stationary, some revolving, 
some suddenly blazing forth, others dazzling the gaze 
with a flood of fire as though they fell, and others leav- 
ing over a long space their trails of light ; while I am in 
the midst of such phenomena, and mingle myself, as far 
as a man inay, with things celestial, — while my soul is 
ever occupied in contemplations so sublime as these, 
what matters it what ground I tread ? 

Seneca. 



IN A FOG. 

A MAN who does not understand Latin is like one who 
walks through a beautiful region in a fog ; his horizon 
is very close to him. He sees only the nearest things 
clearly, and a few steps away from him the outlines of 
everything become indistinct or wholly lost. But the 
horizon of the Latin scholar extends far and wide 
through the centuries of modern history, the Middle 
Ages, and antiquity. 

Arthur Schopenhauer. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



229 



YOUTHFUL DISCOVERERS. 

In education the process of self-development should 
be encouraged to the fullest extent. Children should be 
led to make their own investigations, and to draw their 
own inferences. They should be told as little as possi- 
ble, and induced to discover as much as possible. Hu- 
manity has progressed solely by self -instruction ; and 
that to achieve the best results, each mind must progress 
somewhat after the same fashion, is continually proved 
by the marked success of self-made men. Those who 
have been brought up under the ordinary school drill, 
and have carried away with them the idea that education 
is practicable only in that style, will think it hopeless 
to make children their own teachers. If, however, they 
call to mind that the all-important knowledge of sur- 
rounding objects which a child gets in its early years is 
not without help, — if they will remember that the child 
is self-taught in the use of its mother tongue, — if they 
will estimate the amount of that experience of life, that 
out-of-school wisdom which every boy gathers for him- 
self, — if they will mark the unusual intelligence of the 
uncared-for London gamin, as shown in all the directions 
in which his faculties have been tasked, — if further, 
they will think how many minds have struggled up 
unaided, not only through the mysteries of our irration- 
ally planned curriculum, but through hosts of other obsta- 
cles besides, they will find it a not unreasonable con- 
clusion, that if the subjects be put before him in right 
order and right form, any pupil of ordinary capacity will 
surmount his successive difficulties with but little assist- 
ance. 

Herbert Spencer. 



230 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

As this life is a preparation for eternity, so is educa- 
tion a preparation for this life ; and that education alone 
is valuable which answers these great primary objects. 

Bishop Short. 



EDUCATION FOR CITIZENSHIP. 

What kind of education should every voter have ? 
First, last, and always, political education, built upon 
the foundation of sound common sense and enlightened 
conscience. He must know his rights ; he must feel 
and perform his duties ; he must love his country. 

Conceive of a perfect governor. He knows human 
nature thoroughly. He is deeply versed in the philos- 
ophy of history. In his memory lie, like paths of light, 
the careers of the great governments in past centuries. 
He knows the history of liberty, each pillar and arch 
and buttress of the great temple of freedom, and how 
they have been cemented with the best blood of the 
race. Especially is he familiar with every phase of the 
past and present life of his own country, its prominent 
men, its principles, and its parties. Nothing that bears 
upon the political or social science escapes his appre- 
hension, or misleads his judgment, or baffles his action. 
His arm is as strong, his heart as warm, his conscience 
as keen, as his intellect is piercing and comprehensive. 
Add to this a familiar acquaintance with common busi- 
ness ; the ability of prompt action ; the faculty of ready, 
clear, concise speech ; skill in parliamentary affairs ; tact 
in the management of men ; knowledge of all those 
branches of learning and applied science that are called 
into play in the transaction of public business. Crown 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 23 1 

him as a loyal son of the great King ! This is our ideal 
governor ; this is our ideal voter. To the measure of 
the stature of this perfect citizenship every man ought 
to come. The essential nature of our government 
requires nothing less. Unless a clear majority of voters 
are brought somewhere near the attainment of this goal, 
our liberties are not safe. 

How shall this ideal be measurably attained .-*... 

There is one instrumentality through which the de- 
sired results may be attained. It is an American in- 
vention, the capacity of which has been but partially 
shown, but which possesses immeasurably more power 
than we have been accustomed to think. It can reach 
nearly every child and every youth, three to six hours 
a day, five or six days a week, and keep its hold upon 
him from the age of four or five to sixteen or eighteen. 
Never was machinery more happily devised to accom- 
plish any result than the public school system of New 
England to produce enlightened and conscientious voters. 
With a few adjustments easily made, a definite purpose 
persistently pursued, and a period of instruction reason- 
ably prolonged, the great majority of young Americans 
can be made wise and good citizens. 

And this is, or ought to be, the great object aimed 
at in the public schools. It is demonstrable that the 
founders of New England established its school system 
for this very end ; not to enable men to earn a liveli- 
hood, but to qualify them for citizenship ; not to help 
them to make money, or shine in professions, or to 
become skilled mechanics, prudent farmers, bold sailors, 
shrewd lawyers, accurate accountants, but to be capable 
and virtuous members of the body politic, to manage 



232 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



wisely public affairs ; in the language of Milton, '* to 
perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the 
offices, public and private, of peace and war." I repeat, 
the great need of this country, and the fundamental 
idea of the public school system are identical; viz., 
political education, the training up of the masses in 
youth to be intelligent, honest, and patriotic partici- 
pators in public business. This harvest fully assured, 
the more superadded conveniences and accomplishments 
the better ; failing all this, all else is chaff. 

Homer B. Sprague. 



. THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT. 

It is true that a thorough mastery of the science of 
government in all its various operations requires a whole 
life of laborious diligence. But it is equally true that 
many of its general principles admit of a simple enun- 
ciation, and may be brought within the comprehension 
of the most common minds. In this respect it does not 
materially differ from any of the abstract physical sci- 
ences. Few of the latter are in their full extent within 
the reach of any but the highest class of minds ; but 
many of the elements are nevertheless within the scope 
of common education, and are attainable by ordinary 
diligence. It is not necessary that every citizen should 
be a profound statesman. But it may nevertheless be 
of vast consequence that he should be an enlightened 
as well as an honest voter, and a disciplined thinker, if 
not an eloquent speaker. He may learn enough to 
guard himself against the insidious wiles of the dema- 
gogue, and the artful appeals of the courtier, and the 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



2ZZ 



visionary speculations of the enthusiast, although he 
may not be able to solve many of the transcendental 
problems in political philosophy. 



Joseph Story. 



A CONVERSATION CLASS. 

Why do we cram ologies, osophies, and onomies into 
a young girl's overtaxed brain, and then complacently 
send her out into the critical, censorious world with a 
limited vocabulary, little knowledge of the subtle mean- 
ing, -the ins and outs, the lights and shades of her own 
language, scanty information on current topics, her 
power to communicate what she has read, and a few 
silly stock phrases, which I wish could be obliterated. 
The best scholars seem to be often awkward, shy, and 
silent, unless drawn out upon their favorite study ; the 
more frivolous and superficial chatter, indulge in super- 
latives, and giggle. Is this too severe 1 A wise old 
bachelor, who has had uncommon social opportunities 
and who is always criticising his women friends in a way 
at once cynical and helpful, said to me the other day : 
" Why don't you start a conversation class .? It is an 
art that is strangely and sadly neglected. At least you 
can write about this, and try to wake women to the fact 
that they do not converse. They seem to merely open 
their pretty mouths and let the words tumble out, with- 
out any plan or forethought. I asked a young lady who 
was attending one of our best boarding-schools what 
instruction was given there in conversation, and she had 
never heard of such a thing being attempted." So he 
set me to thinking and writing. 

Kate Sanborn. 



234 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

CONTENTMENT AT HOME. 

If you devote your time to study you will avoid all 
the irksomeness of life; nor will you be a burden to 
yourself, nor your society unsupportable to others. 

Seneca. 



AN IDEAL SCHOOL. 
A WELL-GOVERNED school, in my estimation, is so well 
poised, that is, so self-poised, that in the absence of the 
teacher, it will run on of itself till the nightfall, without 
noise or friction. Is this too much to expect 1 Fellow- 
teachers, v/e can take iron and brass and make a watch 
that will keep time when its owner is sound asleep ; that 
will run on correctly for a year. He is a poor watch- 
maker who cannot make one that will run twenty-four 
hours. Can we do more with dead, dumb metal than 
we can with living, loving, throbbing human hearts } 
Can we accomplish more accurate, definite, reliable re- 
sults with our skilled hands than our trained minds } 
Shall a teacher of immortal souls yield to a maker of 
machinery.? Nay, verily. 

J. DoRMAN Steele. 



A STRONG PROTEST. 

Since the differences and divergencies in personality 
are almost as diverse and multiplicative as the atoms 
comprising the universe, there can be only foolhardiness 
and failure in any attempt at formulating a general sys- 
tem for mental training. None, however generous, can 
be made sufficiently catholic to cope with recognizable 
needs. Schools and colleges, except in a few isolated 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



235 



cases, can, at best, only lay the foundation of what may 
afterward, by individual effort, become sound and prac- 
tical mental culture. ... It is granted, with the 
utmost readiness, that in matured and developed minds 
there exists an element, which for want of a more clearly 
descriptive term, we call individuality. In young people, 
on the other hand, it seems to be the generally accepted 
conclusion that the existence of this characteristic is 
impossible. When individuality, however, is recognized 
in youthjit rarely meets with anything else than the most 
unflagging and tireless efforts to destroy and quench it, 
as if it was a thing so terrible and sinister that it 
menaced church, state, and all great and high human 
interests. The whole aim and object seems to be to 
make something else of the youthful mind than that 
which it really is. A gentle, sensitive child, of dreamy, 
poetic temperament and modest reticence, is scoffed, 
sneered, and bullied into an artificial creature of cold- 
ness and indifference. If he is modest, no effort is left 
unmade to break in upon that. If he is independent 
and fearless, battle is done for the breaking and sub- 
version of his will. The paramount purpose, as I have 
already said, is, if one may be permitted to pass judg- 
ment upon what is, on every hand, plainly before one's 
eyes, to obliterate, wherever it may be existent, every 
spark, gleam, and trace of individuality and originality. 
While this, of course, is not really the purpose of in- 
structors, it is in most cases the main result of their 
labor. Instructors are not of themselves so vastly 
wrong ; the system which they follow is where the fault 
is, and this cannot be changed until more than one hand 

is uplifted against it. George Sand. 



236 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

If there is a real love of books, there is hardly a limit 
to be set to the knowledge that may be acquired from 
them without the aid of instruction, schools, or colleges. 

Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick. 



THE OBJECTIVE ORDER. 

Education should embrace the mindy the hearty and 
the life of man. Now the heart, that is, the will to- 
gether with the affections, should be in accordance with 
the mind, and the life with the heart. If the mind is 
thus conformed to the objective order of things, if it 
possesses the serene light of truth, not the false and 
confusing lights of opinion and prejudice, the heart will 
have a type, as it were, on which to mould itself ; and 
the life will be a continual image of the heart. If the 
life is to be a continual working out of universal good, 
the heart must first be filled with universal charity ; and 
the latter cannot enter the heart unless the mind is so 
disposed as to exclude no form of knowledge, but to 
embrace all. The imiversality of an impartial mind 
produces the universality of the benevolent heart, and 
the universality of the benevolent heart produces the 
tmiversality of a good life. The child's mind should, 
then, be educated to recognize all the connections of 
things which he is capable of perceiving at each period 
of his childhood ; in other words, all of the objective 
order which he is capable of recognizing, and to bring 
him to this, the association of things m his mind must 
not be left to chance, but be duly ordered, the most im- 
portant coming first, the less important afterwards. 

Antonio Rosmini Serbati. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 237 

RELIGION THE SOURCE OF LEARNING. 

It is not accidental that the actual historical progress 
of mankind in art, science, philosophy or virtue, should 
depend, as we have seen, upon some religious impulse 
for its beginnings and continuance. Nor is it strange 
that schools and systems of education should have had 
no other source. It is only surprising when we fancy 
that the currents of progress can now be made to flow 
from any different springs, or that the lamp of learning 
can be lighted or kept burning with any other flame. 
If we are wise we shall not only learn, but be guided by 
lessons which history and human nature both teach, 
that education divorced from religion is like a tree sev- 
ered from its nourishing roots, which thereby falls to 
the ground, leaving its leaves to wither, its fruit to 
perish, and itself to decay. From such folly we turn, 
leaving the blind to lead the blind, not doubting what 
the end to them both will be. 

What, then, are the practical consequences of this 
truth.? What adjustments does it require in the pro- 
cesses of our higher education t It requires obviously 
that the corner-stone and the top-stone and the inform- 
ing law of our whole educational fabric should be Chris- 
tian faith and Christian freedom, the faith in which the 
true, religious life finds its only sufficient root, and the 
freedom in which that same life finds its only adequate 
expression. We need Christian faith to perpetuate and 
perfect what Christian faith has begun. For, even if 
the fabric built upon this basis could be kept standing 
when its foundations were removed, its increasing 
•beauty and living growth would then be gone. A Chris- 



238 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

tian college, therefore, looking not at transient but at 
permanent ends, sowing seed for a perennial harvest of 
the farthest science and the fairest culture, will be solic- 
itous, first of all to continue Christian. If it is to be 
in the long run truly successful in the advancement of 
learning, it will have the Christian name written, not 
alone upon its seal and its first records, but graven in 
its life as ineffaceably as was the name of Phidias on 
Athene's shield. 

Julius H. Seelye. 



THE TEACHINGS OF EXPERIENCE. 

In this last stage of his progress, a man learns in 
various ways. First, he learns unconsciously by the 
growth of his inner powers and the secret but steady 
accumulation of experience. The fire of youth is toned 
down and sobered. The realities of life dissipate many 
dreams, clear up many prejudices, soften down many 
roughnesses. The difference between intention and 
action, between anticipating temptation and bearing it, 
between drawing pictures of holiness or nobleness and 
realizing them, between hopes of success and reality of 
achievement, is taught by many a painful and many an 
unexpected experience. In short, as the youth puts 
away childish things, so does the man put away youthful 
things. Secondly, the full-grown man learns by reflec- 
tions. He looks inwards, and not outwards only. He 
rearranges the results of past experience, re-examines 
by the test of reality the principles supplied to him by 
books or conversation, reduces to intelligible and practi- 
cal formulas what he has hitherto known as vague gen- 
eral rules. He not only generalizes, — youth will gener-. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



239 



alize with great rapidity, and often with great acuteness, 
— but he learns to correct one generaUzation by an- 
other. He gradually learns to disentangle his own 
thoughts, so as not to be led into foolish inconsistencies 
by want of clearness of purpose. He learns to dis- 
tinguish between momentary impulses and permanent 
determination of character. He learns to know the 
limits of his own powers, moral and intellectual ; and 
by slow degrees and with much reluctance, he learns to 
suspend his judgment, and to be content with ignorance 
where knowledge is beyond his reach. He learns to 
know himself and other men, and to distinguish in 
some measure his own peculiarities from the leading 
features of humanity which he shares with all men. He 
learns to know both the v/orth and the worthlessness of 
the world's judgment and of his own. Thirdly, he 
learns much by mistakes, both by his own and by those 
of others. He often persists in a wrong cause till it is 
too late to mend what he has done, and he learns how 
to use it and how to bear it. His principles, or what 
he thought his principles, break down under him, and 
he is forced to analyze them in order to discover what 
amount of truth they really contain. He comes upon 
new and quite unexpected issues of what he has done 
or said, and he has to profit by such warnings as he 
receives. His errors often force him, as it were, to go 
back to school ; not now with the happy docility of a 
child, but with the chastened submission of a penitent. 
Or, more often still, his mistakes inflict a sharp chas- 
tisement, which teaches him a new lesson without much 
effort on his own part to learn. Lastly, he learns much 
by contradiction. The collision of society compels 



240 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

him to state his opinions clearly ; to defend them ; to 
modify them when indefensible ; perhaps to surrender 
them altogether, consciously or unconsciously ; still 
more often to absorb them into larger and fuller 
thoughtSj less forcible, but more comprehensive. The 
precision which is thus often forced upon him always 
seems to diminish something of the heartiness and 
power which belonged to more youthful instincts; but 
he gains in directness of aim, and therefore in firmness 
of resolution. But the greatest of his gains is what 
seems a loss ; for he learns not to attempt the solution 
of insoluble problems, and to have no opinion at all on 
many points of the deepest interest. Usually this takes 
the form of an abandonment of speculation ; but it may 
rise to the level of a philosophical humility, which stops 
where it can advance no further, and confesses its ov/n 
weakness in the presence of the mysteries of life. 

Frederick Temple. 



If you allow yourself to rest satisfied with present 
attainments, however respectable they may be, your 
mental garments will soon look very threadbare. 

F. W. TiLTON. 



THE WORLD STILL YOUNG. 

I DO not think that it is the mission of this age, or of 
any other particular age, to lay down a system of edu- 
cation which shall hold good for all ages. The basis of 
human nature is, perhaps, permanent ; but not so the 
forms under which the spirit of humanity manifests it- 
self. It is sometimes peaceful, sometimes warlike. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 241 

sometimes religious, sometimes sceptical ; and history 
is simply the record of its mutations. 

*' The eternal Pan 
Who layeth the world's incessant plan 
Halteth never in one shape, 
But forever doth escape 
Into new forms." 

This appears to be the law of things throughout the 
universe; and it is, therefore, no proof of fickleness or 
destructiveness, properly so called, if the implements 
of human culture change with the times, and the re- 
quirements of the present age be found different from 
those of the preceding. Unless you are prepared to 
say that the past world, or some portion of it, has been 
the final expression of human competency ; that the 
wisdom of man has already reached its climax ; that 
the intellect of to-day possesses feebler powers or a 
narrower scope than the intellect of earlier times, 
you cannot, with reason, demand an unconditional ac- 
ceptance of the systems of the past ; nor are you justi- 
fied in divorcing me from the world and times in which 
I live, and confining my conversation to the times gone 
by. Who can blame me if I cherish the belief that the 
world is still young ; that there are great possibilities 
in store for it ; that the Englishman of to-day is made 
of as good stuff, and has as high and independent a 
vocation to fulfil as had the ancient Greek or Roman ? 
While thankfully accepting what antiquity has to offer, 
let us never forget that the present century has just as 
good a right to its forms of thought and methods of cul- 
ture as any former centuries had to theirs, and that the 



242 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

same sources of power are open to us to-day as were 
ever open to humanity in any age of the world. 

John Tyndall. 



A BIT OF ADVICE. 



Might I give counsel to any young hearer, I would 
say to him: "Try to frequent the company of your bet- 
ters. In books and life that is the most wholesome 
society. Learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure 
of life is that. Note what the good men admired ; they 
admired good things, while narrow spirits always ad- 
mire basely and worship meanly." 

William M. Thackeray. 



THE TEACHER'S RESPONSIBILITY. 

In order that a teacher should be thoroughly devoted 
to his work, he should be duly sensible of its impor- 
tance ; he should believe that the future character of 
a country depends upon the education of its children ; 
he should be fully aware that in the soft and virgin soil 
of their souls he may plant the shoots of poison or sow 
the seeds of sweet-scented flowers or of life-giving fruit ; 
he should realize the momentous thought that the 
little, prattling, thoughtless children by whom he is sur- 
rounded are to become the men of the approaching age. 
As a necessary consequence of all this, he should care- 
fully look to the predilections of children. That child 
who is amusing himself with drawing triangles and 
circles may, under proper training, hereafter become 
another Pascal ; that little dirty urchin who is pluck- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 24 

ing flowers by the wayside may become the poet o 
the orator of his age ; that thoughtful, feeble body wh 
is watching the effect of the steam, as it blows an 
puffs from the tea-kettle, may become another Wati 
destined to multiply the resources of our nations 
wealth and power ; that ruthless little savage wh 
is leading mimic battles of the snow-storm may b( 
come (unless his evil tendencies are counteracted b 
education) another Napoleon, who may seize with 
giant grasp the iron thunderbolt of death, and on th 
wreck of a people's hopes and happiness build himsel 
up a terrible monument of guilt and greatness. 

T. Tat 



HOW TO SUCCEED. 

Train up children in diligence, if ever you desir 
that they should excel in anything. Diligence put 
almost everything in our power ; and will, in time 
make children capable of the best and greatest thingj 

Archbishop Tillotso: 



THE SOCRATIC METHOD. 

" The Socratic method " of instruction was singi 
larly appropriate to the idea of education of which w 
have been speaking. The method of question an( 
answer, beginning with some simple principle whicj 
was well understood and acknowledged by both pai 
ties, and progressing, step by step, through unforeseei 
stages to an unexpected but unavoidable conclusion, ii 
all which process the minds of both teacher and pupi 



244 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



are not only awakened to their utmost activity, but act 
and re-act upon each other in direct intercourse and 
perpetual intercommunion. This method, if not origi- 
nated by Socrates, was conducted with such consum- 
mate skill to such brilliant results, that it has ever 
since been called "the Socratic method." Socrates 
knew that influence, to be deep, must be living and per- 
sonal ; that instruction, to be effective, must be appropri- 
ate and direct. He knew that if he would mould the 
character and the conduct of the young to his liking, 
mind must grapple with mind, and heart beat to heart, 
and spirit interpenetrate spirit. This could be done 
only by oral communication. This was done, and done 
effectually, by the Socratic method. "When I heard 
Pericles or any other great orator," says the pleasure- 
loving yet aspiring Alcibiades, " I was entertained and 
delighted, and I felt that he had spoken well. But no 
mortal speech has ever excited in me such emotions as 
are kindled by this magician. Whenever I hear him I 
am, as it were, charmed and fettered. My heart leaps 
like an inspired Corybant. My inmost soul is stung by 
his words as by the bite of a serpent ; it is indignant at 
its own rude and ignoble character. I often weep tears 
of regret, and think how vain and inglorious is the life 
I lead. Nor am I the only one that weeps like a child 
and despairs of himself. Many others are affected in 
the same way." No book can speak with such power 
to the heart and conscience of the student. No mere 
text-book teacher ever exerts such an influence. He 
must first digest his books — all books, the books of 
men and the books of God — in his own soul, and then 
infuse himself into the souls of his pupils. And before 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



245 



he can do this, he must enter into their minds, draw 
them out and absorb them, as it were, into himself. 
Then he can understand them, and insinuate himself 
into them. Then they can understand him, and ac- 
cept his teachings and receive his impress. It must be 
a mutual process, action and reaction, question and 
answer. Such was the Socratic method. 

William S. Tyler. 



THE DUTY OF SCHOLARSHIP. 

Much as I value the knowledge of the principles 
which underlie the art of teaching, I set a far higher 
value on the thorough mastery of the subjects taught. 
I would much rather have my child instructed by a 
teacher who had mastered the subject taught, and who 
trusted to his familiarity with it in all its parts for sug- 
gestions as to the best method of presenting it, than 
by one who, with an inferior equipment of knowledge, 
made it an invariable rule of practice to proceed from 
the concrete to the abstract, from the known to the 
unknown in his teaching. And so I say that the first 
duty of the teacher, and the one which demands special 
emphasis at this time, is the duty of scholarship. 

John Tetlow. 



A MATURE MIND. 

A VIGOROUS and mature mind is one in which the real 
relations of things, and not their accidental connections, 
bring them forward and determine either their continu- 
ance as objects of thought or their speedy dismissal. 

Isaac Taylor. 



246 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

TRAINING THE OBJECT OF EDUCATION. 

It is well to bear in mind that principles may be 
plain, though the working out of the principles may be 
far from plain, but may become, for a time and in single 
instances, a matter of almost pure faith, as every failure 
is visible, and success very often not so. It cannot, 
however, admit of doubt that training is the object of 
education, however people may differ about the means. 
It can scarcely be denied that spreading the efforts over 
too wide a surface is not training. This narrows the 
question to some such limits as these. Let the mind 
be exercised in one noble subject — a subject, if such 
can be found, capable of calling into play reasoning pow- 
ers, fancy, imagination, strength, activity, and endur- 
ance, and be sure that in the intervals of work there 
will be plenty of time for less exhaustive pursuits. The 
weak man's work is the strong man's play. If the sub- 
ject also itself embraces a wide field of knowledge, so 
much the better ; working in a pretty country is better 
than working in a dull one. The universal consent of 
many ages has found such a subject in the study of 
Greek and Latin literature — the classics, as they are 
familiarly called. 

Edward Thring. 



A MISFORTUNE. 



Important as natural history, and especially physi- 
ology, may be, I venture to wish rather than to hope 
that the older studies which relate to the mind may 
retain that supremacy which seems rightly to belong to 
them in comparison with all that relates to the structure 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 247 

of men and animals. A very distinguished scholar has 
startled us lately by recording the fear that the knowl- 
edge of Greek can hardly be expected to maintain its 
present level in England ; many persons will receive 
this expression of opinion, from a calm, well-qualified 
judge, with the pain which results from the conviction 
that it is sound, and that the principle may be extended 
further. A decline in the state of Greek scholarship 
implies even more than the failure of esteem for the 
most valuable and influential of all languages ; it in- 
volves with it a gradual but certain decay of general 
culture, the sacrifice of learning to science, the neglect 
of the history of man and of thought for the sake of 
facts relating to the external world, 

I. TODHUNTER. 



The first condition of success is an honest receptivity 
and a willingness to abandon all preconceived notions, 
however cherished, if they be found to contradict the 
truth. 

John Tyndall, 

EQUAL EDUCATION FOR MEN AND WOMEN. 

Schools for general culture are designed for the de- 
velopment of the individual to secure mental growth 
and power, facility and justness of mental action. We 
find in the intellectual capabilities necessary to enable 
either sex to gain the advantages of such schools no 
difference. Such specialties as divide our professional 
schools from the schools for general culture will be found 
fit or unfit for the training of the feminine mind, accord- 



248 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

ing to the uses to which, in a business or professional 
way, that mind is to be put, just as would be the case 
were a masculine mind considered. The whole field of 
literary and scientific culture lies equally open to either. 
With equal right the highest training of these powers is 
freely conceded. ■ 

H. S. Tarbell. 



EARLY INSTRUCTION IN MUSIC. 

Such is the constitution of society at the present day 
that no education can be called finished which does not 
embrace some knowledge of music. For the acquisition 
of its principles the period of school life offers the great- 
est facilities. The mind is plastic, and in its most re- 
ceptive state ; the emotions, the sympathies are in full 
play. Voice and ear, so obedient to external impres- 
sions, are flexible and susceptible to cultivation. If 
there be any supposed incapacity, any lack of " musical 
ear," as it is called, it may with almost absolute cer- 
tainty be overcome. It frequently happens that children, 
apparently deficient in ear and voice, rapidly attain both 
under suitable training, and ultimately excel those more 
gifted by nature. A great mistake is therefore com- 
mitted in excluding any child from the benefits of 
musical instruction on account of apparent incompe- 
tency. 

The surroundings of the schoolroom are also exceed- 
ingly favorable to real progress. The association of 
numbers, the laudable ambition to excel, excited by class 
practice, afford a powerful stimulus, and give the teacher 
an advantage v/hich individual tuition can never acquire. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



249 



. . . With children the teacher has a power of creation ; 
with adults he is dependent on circumstances. In one 
case he educates, in the other he has to amend the 
defects of education. Usually with the best efforts of 
both teacher and pupil, only respectable mediocrity can 
be attained. The postponement of musical instruction 
in a great measure accounts .for the superficiality in 
music which so generally prevails. It must account for 
the toleration of musical charlatans, novices in musical 
science, who startle by unheard-of feats in execution, 
and who are patronized and admired by the multitudes 
who prefer novelty and brilliancy to a substantial and 
consistent culture. 

Eben Tourjee. 



In a well-organized society, though no one can attain 
to universal knowledge, it should nevertheless be pos- 
sible to learn everything. 



Talleyrand. 



PHYSICS AND CULTURE. 

By the study of physics we have opened to us treas- 
uries of power of which antiquity never dreamed ; we 
lord it over Matter, but in so doing we have become 
better acquainted with the laws of Mind ; for to the 
mental philosopher Nature furnishes a screen against 
which the human spirit projects its own image, and 
thus becomes capable of self-inspection. 

Thus, then, as a means of intellectual culture, the 
study of physics exercises and sharpens observation ; 
it brings the most exhaustive logic into play; it com-* 



250 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



pares, abstracts, and generalizes, and provides a mental 
imagery admirably suited to these processes. The 
strictest precision of thought is everywhere enforced, 
and prudence, foresight, and sagacity are demanded. 
By its appeals to experiment, it continually checks 
itself, and builds upon a sure foundation. 

Thus far, we have regarded the study of physics as 
an agent of intellectual culture ; but, like other things 
in nature, it subserves more than a single end. The 
colors of the clouds delight the eye, and no doubt 
accomplish moral purposes also ; but the selfsame 
clouds hold within their fleeces the moisture by which 
our fields are rendered fruitful. The sunbeams excite 
our interest and invite our investigation ; but they also 
extend their beneficent influences to our fruits and 
corn, and thus accomplish not only intellectual ends, 
but minister, at the same time, to our material necessi- 
ties. And so it is with scientific research. While the 
love of science is a sufficient incentive to the pursuit of 
science, and the investigator, in the prosecution of his 
inquiries, is raised above all material considerations, 
the result of his labors may exercise a potent influence 
upon the physical condition of man. 

John Tyndall. 



HABITS IN THE GRISTLE. 

" How can people remember to turn out their toes at 
every step all their lives .'' " was the question of a little 
fellow to his mother, when she was seeking to impress 
upon him the duty of attending to his "walk " ; and he 
had to be told that they do not remember, but that they 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



251 



get into such a strong habit of doing what she recom- 
mended, that it would be unnatural for them to do 
otherwise. But it is quite similar in matters of more 
importance ; so it is only when the student is caught 
early enough, and trained thoroughly enough, that the 
right matter and manner of discourse will become 
habitual with him, and he will be able to use all the 
finest qualities of style and all the best graces of elocu- 
tion unconsciously and as matters of course ; and it is 
only then that they will be of the highest service to 
him. 

Mark the qualifications, however. He must be caught 
early enough. Attention to these things, as ends in 
themselves, will do him grievous harm at a later stage 
in his history, when, for example, he is in the thick of 
his duties as a preacher and pastor, or in the midst of 
multitudinous engagements at the bar. The effect 
then will be to spoil nature, while yet he never can 
acquire such ease as to make art natural. It will make 
him stilted, self-conscious, and manneristic. If we 
wished to injure a preacher who is in actual work, 
one very sure way of doing so would be to set him 
then to the study of these things ; but, on the other 
hand, if we desired to prepare a young man for doing 
effective service as a speaker, we should take care 
that while he is as yet in his formative stage, and, 
so to speak, in the gristle, with his habits yet to be 
acquired, he should be committed to the care of a wise 
teacher, to learn the arts of reasoning and composition, 
and, if possible, to that of a still wiser teacher, to take 
lessons in elocution. 

William M. Taylor. 



252 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

CLEAR THOUGHT, CORRECT JUDGMENT. 

If we have made mistakes, careful study may teach 
us better ; if we have quarrelled about words, the en- 
lightenment of the understanding is the best means to 
show us our folly ; if we have vainly puzzled our intel- 
lects with subjects beyond human cognizance, better 
knowledge of ourselves will help us to be humbler. 
Life, indeed, is higher than all else ; and no service 
that man can render to his fellows is to be compared 
with the heavenly power of a life of holiness. But next 
to that must be ranked whatever tends to make men 
think clearly and judge correctly. So valuable, even 
above all things (excepting only godliness), is clear 
thought, that the labors of the statesman are far below 
those of the philosopher in duration, in power, and in 
beneficial results. Thought is now higher than action, 
unless action be inspired with the very breath of heaven ; 
for we are now men, governed by principles, if governed 
at all ; and cannot rely any longer on the impulses of 
youth or the discipline of childhood. 

Frederick Temple. 



EDUCATING CONDITIONS. 

We prolong life and growth by the food we eat at 
stated times and in formal and in conventional ways. 
But it is not only by the processes of table-life that we 
live and grow. There are, besides our meals, the air 
we breathe every moment, sunlight, sleep, clothing, and 
the artificial heating of the atmosphere which we keep 
up. After the same manner we are educated, not by 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 253 

specific acts of appointed teachers, but by every hour 
we live, by every breath we draw, by every object we 
see, by every v/ord we hear, and by the intellectual, 
moral, social, yea, even the physical atmosphere v/hich 
surrounds us. It is a serious problem in true pedagogy : 
How shall we select, apply, and regulate the educating 
"conditions"? And it is a question for the people 
rather than for the pedagogues to answer. 

J. H. Vincent. 



HOW TO TEACH MORALITY. 

Morality must be taught as a real science, whose 
principles will be demonstrated to the reason of all men 
and to that of all ages. It is only in this way that it 
will resist all trials. 

Talleyrand. 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

There is, in the present organization of the world, 
but one single species of instruction which is applicable 
to all classes, and embraces all human relations ; namely, 
religion. It awakens and maintains the consciousness 
of an inner and higher existence, which no chains can 
reach and no oppression can subdue ; and thus is the 
most efficient teacher of true freedom, and of the recog- 
nition of that only equality which sustains all the civic 
relations, and exists in the sentiments even of the 
poorest. 

VoN Gentz. 



254 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 

MOODY, AND NOT INGERSOLL. 

Mental development is not necessarily a blessing to 
the world. It poisons or sweetens according to the use 
made of the power developed. An Ingersoll poisons 
the world at a thousand dollars a night, a Moody helps 
the poor, depressed, conscience-stricken sinner nearer 
God. Each has studied with care the art of influencing 
the mind and heart of man. Mental development is of 
such a nature that it needs to have character develop- 
ment go hand in hand with it. 

A. E. WiNSHIP. 



"Drink deep, or taste not," is a direction fully as 
applicable to religion, if we would find it a source of 
pleasure, as it is to knowledge. A little religion is, it 
must be confessed, apt to make men gloomy, as a little 
knowledge is to render them vain. 

William Wilberforce. 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 

Every one, whatever his position, -may well be sup- 
posed to possess the means of developing his own 
pov/ers, and arriving at the standing of an intellectual 
man. There is nothing in the nature of any occupation 
that renders such an expectation extravagant. The 
uncles of Hugh Miller were highly cultivated men, read- 
ing the best books, concerning one of whom he remarks, 
"There are professors of natural history who know less 
of living nature than was known by uncle Sandy" ; and 
yet one of them was a harness-maker, and the other a 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 255 

Stone-mason, each laboring industriously at his calling, 
for daily bread, for six days in the week, • 

But if we take no account of the acquisition of knowl- 
edge and confine ourselves simply to intellectual culture, 
I apprehend that we shall arrive at substantially the same 
result. Suppose that our sole object is to develop the 
powers of the human mind. We must, then, first ask, 
What are these powers } It will be sufficient for our 
present purpose to consider the following, as they are 
allowed to be the most important : Perception, by which 
we arrive at a knowledge of the phenomena of the world 
without us ; Consciousness, by which we become aware 
of the changes of the world within us ; Abstraction and 
Generalization, by which our knowledge of individuals 
becomes the knowledge of classes ; Reasoning, by which 
we use the known to discover the unknown ; Imagina- 
tion, by which we construct pictures in poetry and ideals 
in philosophy ; and Memory, by which all these various 
forms of past knowledge are recalled and made available 
for the present. 

Now if such be the powers conferred on us by our 
Creator, it must, I think, be admitted that each of them 
is designed for a particular purpose, and that a human 
mind would be fatally deficient were any one of them 
wanting. In our cultivation of mind, then, we must 
have respect not to one or two of them, but to all; 
since that is the most perfect mind in which all of them 
are the most fully developed. If then, we desire to im- 
prove the intellect of man by study, it is obvious that 
that study will be the best adapted to our purpose which 
cultivates, not one, but all of these faculties, and culti- 
vates them all most thoroughly. We cultivate our 



256 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

powers of every kind by exercise, and that study will 
most effectually aid us in the work of self-development, 
which requires the original exercise of the greatest 
number of them. 

Supposing this to be admitted, which I think will not 
be denied, the question will arise. What studies are best 
adapted to our purpose ? This is a question which can- 
not be settled by authority. We are just as capable of 
deciding it as the men who have gone before us. They 
were once, like ourselves, men of the present, and their 
wisdom has not certainly received any addition from the 
slumber of centuries. They may have been able to judge 
correctly for the time that then zvas, but could they re- 
visit us now, they might certainly be no better able 
than ourselves to judge correctly for the time that now 
is. If any of us should be heard of two hundred years 
from hence, it would surely be strange folly for the men 
of A.D. 2054 to receive our sayings as oracles, concern- 
ing the conditions of society which will be then existing. 
God gives to every age the means for perceiving its own 
wants and discovering the best manner of supplying 
them ; and it is, therefore, certainly best that every age 
should decide such questions for itself. We cannot, 
certainly, decide them by authority. 

Francis Wayland. 



WHY NOT BOTH? 



The study of elementary mathematics, therefore, along 
with the study of classical authors, ought to be impera- 
tively required by all universities. To separate these 
two branches of study, and to allow students to neglect 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



257 



one of them, because some persons have a taste for one, 
and some persons for the other, is to abdicate the func- 
tions of education altogether. Universities and colleges 
do not exist merely for the purpose of enabling men to 
do what they best like to do ; or for the purpose of offer- 
ing and awarding prizes for trials of strength, in modes 
selected by the combatants; their business is the gen- 
eral cultivation of all the best faculties of those who are 
committed to their charge, and the preservation and 
promotion of the general culture of mankind. And it 
is certain, that of all the persons who derive advantage 
from a university education, none are more benefited 
than those who, with a general aptitude for learning, 
are prevented by the requisitions of such institutions 
from confining their exertions to one favorite channel. 
The man of mathematical genius who, by the demands 
of his college or his university, is led to become familiar 
with the best Greek and Latin classics, becomes thus a 
man of liberal education, instead of being merely a pow- 
erful calculator. The elegant classical scholar, who is 
compelled in the same way to master the propositions 
of geometry and mechanics, acquires among them habits 
of rigor of thought and connection of reasoning. He 
thus becomes fitted to deal with any subj ect with which 
reason can be concerned, and to estimate the prospects 
which science offers ; instead of being kept down to the 
level of the mere scholar, learned in the literature of the 
past, but illogical and incoherent in his thoughts, and 
incapable of grappling with the questions which the 
present and the future suggest. To neglect to demand 
a combination of these two elements, would be to let 
slip the only machinery by which universities, as the 



258 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

general cultivators of the mind, can execute their 
office. 

William Whewell. 



There is no business, no avocation whatever, which 
will not permit a man, who has an inclination, to give a 
little time every day to the studies of his youth. 

Wyttenbach. 



EYES AND NO EYES. 

Moreover, taking education in its broad sense as the 
training of all the powers that go to make up the man, 
I would point out how much science contributes towards 
increasing the powers of the senses. All science is 
based, some one has said, on the fact that we have great 
curiosity and very weak eyes ; and science gives men a 
marvellous extension of the power and range of the 
acuteness of those eyes. "Eyes and no eyes" is the 
title of an old story ; and it scarcely seems too strong a 
way of marking the difference between the powers of 
perception of a cultivated naturalist, and those of the 
ordinary gentleman ignorant of everything in nature. 
To the one the stars of heaven and the stones on earth, 
the forms of the hills and the flowers in the hedges, are 
a constant source of that great and peculiar pleasure 
derived from intelligence. And day by day do I see 
how boys increase their range of sight, and that not only 
of the things we teach them to see, but they outrun us, 
and discover for themselves. And the power once 
gained can never be lost. I know many instances of 
boys whose eyes were opened at school by the ordinary 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 259 

natural-science lectures, who have since found great 
pleasure and constant occupation in some branch of 
scientific study. 

J. M. Wilson. 



BRAINS, SIR. 



The truth is, that what man most needs for the busi- 
ness and labor of life is, not so much specific knowl- 
edge, as mental aptitude and power. *' Education," 
says Mill, " makes a man a more intelligent shoemaker, 
if that be his occupation, but not by teaching him how 
to make shoes ; it does so by the mental exercise it 
gives and the habits it impresses." The abiding, prac- 
tical result of school-training is soul-power. A knowl- 
edge of the facts and principles relating to a given 
pursuit is very important, but higher than this is that 
developed strength and ability, that power of discern- 
ment and application, which can change the dead facts 
of knowledge into the living realities of human action 
and endeavor. Knowledge may guide and enlighten, 
but discipline gives acumen, strength, self-poise, grasp, 
inspiration; and these are the lucky winners of success 
in all the conflicts and emergencies of life. The super- 
ficial empiricist, with a stock of scientific facts in his 
head, but with no clear insight into their causes and 
relations, is liable to blunder in every new application of 
his knowledge. Practical facts, to be of practical utility 
for the purposes of guidance, must be applied by an 
intelligent mind. '' With brains, sir," was Mr. Opie's 
reply to the student who wished to know with what he 
mixed his paints, and this answer contains the true 
practical philosophy of both art and business. The 



26o EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

prime want in getting a living, which Mr. Froude 
makes the chief end of Hfe is, ''brains, sir," — a mind 
keen-sighted and far-sighted, steady in aim and purpose, 
and full of faith. Thought is the highest practical re- 
sult of intellectual training. This is the alchemy that 
changes plodding toil to many-handed industry, and 
makes the brain of labor stronger than its muscles. It 
was Prussian brains that won on the fields of Sadowa 
and Sedan. 

E, E. White. 



THE CLASSICS AND MORE TOO. 

Good literature is, perhaps, on the whole, the most 
enduring of all the products of human activity. Dead, 
we call the languages of Greece and Rome, and it is 
the fashion now to ridicule the idea of devoting so much 
time in our schools and colleges to the study of dead 
Greek and Latin. The "new education," so called, lauds 
the study of science above the study of the ancient clas- 
sics ; the study of nature, that is to say, above the study 
of man. But is not man at least a part of nature } And 
is not language the noblest outward attribute of man } 
Science includes, for instance, what used to be called 
natural history. The devotees of this branch of scientific 
inquiry think it a not unworthy employment of time to 
spend years, or perhaps a life, in observing and discuss- 
ing the habits of some single species of the lower ani- 
mals. It might very well happen that an ichthyologist 
would reckon it a good account to render of himself if, 
as the result of investigations covering years of his life, 
he is able to present to the world at last an approxi- 
mately exhaustive enumeration, description, classifica- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 261 

tion of the various fossil and extinct species of fishes 
that may be found, in faint traces of their prehistoric 
existence, among the stratified rocks of the planet. 

We are far from wishing to disparage the value of 
such scientific explorations. By all means let us learn 
the most we can of whatever there is to be known. But 
surely man himself also is one, and a not insignificant 
one, among animals, and it is science — why not .? — to 
study man in the monuments that he has left behind 
him from the distant ages of his life and activity on the 
earth. The languages in which the ruling races of 
mankind did their speaking and their writing, genera- 
tion after generation, the literatures which embalmed 
for all future time the thought, the feeling, the fancy, 
and the recorded actions of those myriad millions of the 
foremost of our fellow-men — surely, say we, these lan- 
guages and these literatures are worthy of the attention 
from us that they have commanded and that they com- 
mand, if it be only on the score of their being a part of 
science itself. Is not man, even as just an interesting 
animal, an object of study at least equal in imxportance 
to fishes .'' And shall we not continue, as lovers of sci- 
ence, if no longer as classical linguists, to teach our 
children how the world's gray fathers spoke and wrote, 
and what they thought, felt, fancied ? And this, although 
their languages be now dead, if languages can indeed be 
dead that live in literatures which are immortal. 

W. C. Wilkinson. 



MATHEMATICS PROMOTES CIVILIZATION. 
Thus the experiment on education, which has been 
going on from the beginning of Greek civilization to 



262 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

the present day, appears to be quite distinct and consis- 
tent in its result. And the lesson we learn from it is 
this : that so far as civilization is connected with the 
advance and diffusion of human knowledge, civilization 
flourishes when the prevalent education is mathematical, 
and fades when philosophy is the subject most pre- 
ferred. We find abundant confirmation of the belief, 
that education has a strong influence upon the progress 
of civilization ; and we find that the influence follows a 
settled rule ; when the education is practical teaching, 
it is a genuine culture, tending to increased fertility and 
vigor ; when it is speculative teaching, it appears that, 
however the effect is produced, men's minds do, in some 
way or other, lose that force and clearness on which 
intellectual progression depends. 

William Whewell. 



TRADE SCHOOLS. 



Trade schools have not played much of a part in the 
United States. The pupils of our schools, generally 
speaking, do not know, and cannot know, what they are 
to do in life ; and the notion has been widely spread 
that it is well that all the teaching that is given in 
school should be of a general character, such as is fitted 
to train the mind in the best way, and that the pupil 
should be left to acquire subsequently to school and in- 
dependently of it, the special knowledge and the special 
skill needed for that occupation which he shall, as 
things turn out, come to adopt. This has been true in 
a high degree in the past. How about the future t Is 
it desirable that trade schools should now be grafted on 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 263 

to our system ? Has the time come in the development 
of our people, when it should be taken for granted that 
a boy or a girl is to pursue a certain occupation in life, 
and that his or her education in school should be 
directed to that end ? 

Francis A, Walker. 



MORAL INSTRUCTION. 

There is the greater need that moral instruction in 
this country be given in the public school and to all 
classes, because the changes in society are so rapid and 
continued. If we had here higher classes and lower 
classes, which approached, as in Europe, somewhat to 
the immovable form of castes ; if the child, as a regular 
thing, took the calling and position of the parent, 
there would be a greater simplicity of moral instruction 
possible. Without fail, on that supposition, unchange- 
able habits of thinking, unalterable rules of conduct, 
would form themselves in each stratum of society, and 
instruction within each stratum would be confined 
practically to the correction of the errors that might 
there grow up. But as our country is, there are no 
fixed grades of society. All positions are open to all, 
and thus there may be brought by each new-comer to 
his new sphere of life some new opinion to correct, or 
to deprave the standard already existing. We must 
educate all, then, on the universal principles of moral- 
ity applicable to all places in life, to the servant's place 
and the master's, to the citizen's and the legislator's, 
to the farmer's and the merchant's. If our boys go 
from the country school and the plough to the city, and 



204 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

there rise to the highest mercantile standing, they must 
be forearmed and made ready by sound principles for 
the new sphere of their activity. Nowhere do men 
change employments so often and so entirely as here. 
Nowhere, therefore, can we calculate so little on fixed 
habits within callings; nowhere can we be less sure 
that the moral tone will not degenerate. Happily, 
nowhere is there so much hope that the moral tone 
may improve. 

Theodore Dwight Woolsey. 



OF REASONING. 

If it were inquired what is to be regarded as the 
most appropriate intellectual occupation of man as 
man, what would be the answer.? The statesman is 
engaged with political affairs ; the soldier with mili- 
tary ; the mathematician with the properties of num- 
bers and magnitudes ; the merchant with commercial 
concerns, etc. But in what are all and each of these 
employed .-* Evidently in reasoning. 

Richard Whately. 



OF DRAWING. 



While treating of the education of the perceptive 
powers, I should have spoken of drawing as an impor- 
tant auxiliary. The acquisition of this accomplishment 
calls into exercise the most earnest use of the percep- 
tive powers. It gives accuracy to the eye. It develops 
the taste, and teaches to select and dwell upon the ele- 
ments of the beautiful. With proper instruction, this 
delightful art might be learned as universally as pen- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 265 

manship. That we could make every pupil an accom- 
plished draftsman, I do not affirm, any more than that 
we can make every one a finished penman. We should, 
however, improve the perceptive powers and the taste 
of all ; and wherever a talent for the fine arts has been 
bestowed, we should thus arouse it from its slumber, 
and place it at once in the course of development. 

Francis Wayland. 



REFINED TASTES. 
It has been doubted whether painting and music 
should be taught to young ladies, because much time 
is requisite to bring them to any considerable degree 
of perfection, and they are not immediately useful. 
Though these objections have weight, yet they are 
founded on too limited a view of the objects of educa- 
tion. They leave out the important consideration of 
forming the character. I should not consider it an 
essential point that the music of a lady's piano should 
rival that of her master's, or that her drawing-room 
should be decorated with her own paintings rather 
than those of others ; but it is the intrinsic advantage 
which she might derive from the refinement of herself 
that would induce me to recommend an attention to 
these elegant pursuits. The harmony of sound has 
a tendency to produce a correspondent harmony of 
soul ; and that art, which obliges us to study nature 
in order to imitate her, often enkindles the latent 
spark of taste, of sensibility for her beauties, till it 
glows to adoration for their author and a refined love 
of all his works. 

Mrs. Emma Willard. 



266 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 

A REFORM in the present methods of educating young 
women, which I take it for granted is the meaning of 
the demand for a higher education of women, can only 
be brought about by parents giving the same care and 
attention to the education of their daughters that they 
give to that of their sons. This will require* an aban- 
donment of the idea that a girl's education is to be com- 
pleted before she is eighteen or twenty years old. It 
will require a protest against the veneering processes of 
our fashionable schools, and the cramming methods of 
our normal college. It will require for the present, 
as the most practicable solution of the difficulty of pro- 
curing the best training for our young women, — at all 
events, for those who desire it, — that our colleges should 
furnish the same privileges for girls that they do for 
boys. This does not necessarily involve co-education. 
It can be accomplished without it or with it, as the 
question of convenience or expense may determine. 
The just and reasonable demand of woman is, that it 
shall be made possible for her to procure as good an 
education and as thorough a training in any branch of 
knowledge as it is possible for a man to acquire ; and 
until this demand is complied with, either by opening 
the doors of our colleges and universities to women, or 
by establishing colleges especially for them, we shall be 
perpetuating a grievous wrong, and at the same time 
neglecting one of the surest means of increasing the 
sum of human happiness and the possibilities of human 
energy. 

Andrew D. White. 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS, 



ORIGINAL PAINTINGS. 



267 



Search into things yourselves, as well as learn them 
from others ; be acquainted with men as well as books ; 
learn all things as much as you can at first hand ; and 
let as many of your ideas as possible be the representa- 
tions of things, and not merely the representations of 
other men's ideas. Thus your soul, like some noble 
building, shall be richly furnished with original paint- 
ings, and not with mere copies. Isaac Watts. 



MANUAL TRAINING-SCHOOLS. 

I CLAIM that the manual training-school furnishes the 
solution of the problem of labor versus capital. The new 
education gives more complete development, versatility, 
and adaptability to circumstance. No liberally trained 
workman can be a slave to a method, or dependent upon 
the demand for a particular article or kind of labor. 
With every new tool and new process the cultivated arti- 
san rises to new spheres of usefulness and to new dignity. 
In earlier times, when the day-laborer was little better 
than a machine, with no freedom or amplitude, almost 
helpless and useless away from his crank, progress was 
well typified by a ruthless car, which, with most unequal 
and cruel pressure, ground to powder the unfortunates 
under its wheels, who had no elasticity, no power of 
escape. 

When the new education shall have fully come, prog- 
ress will be better represented by the ship of state, 
which rests gently and gracefully upon all, without in- 
equality or oppression. Rigidity has given place to 



268 EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 

fluidity. The elements yield and do not break. Thus, 
without friction or oppression, and hence without bitter- 
ness and strife, shall our progress be made. The sense 
of hardship and wrong will never come, and bloody riots 
will cease when workmen have such mechanical culture 
that the invention of a new tool, a grand labor-saving 
machine, only adds new power and dignity to their skil- 
ful hands. 

C. M. Woodward. 



THE TEMPERANCE REFORM IN SCHOOLS. 

** The burgomasters of the future " are the boys whom 
you will welcome back from their vacation rambles and 
exploits, in a few weeks from now ; the merry girls now 
engaged in picnic games and seaside pastimes are to be 
the wives and mothers of the Republic's second century. 
This temperance reform means more, for their future 
weal or woe, than any other to which their teachers' 
influence can, by any possibility, be given ; and the 
opinions they form at school, by which the example of 
their lives will be controlled, are of more import this 
day to the land we love than all the fine-spun '' issues " 
on which political parties are impotently endeavoring to 
feed. The relation of the teacher to this reform is then, 
important, intimate, vital. He moulds in clay, while 
the temperance agitators are pounding away on marble. 
He forms, while they almost vainly endeavor to re-form. 
It is in his power to organize victory for the future of a 
noble cause, by the justness of his arguments and the 
quiet persuasion of his example. The teacher has a fair 
field comparatively to contend with. There is hardly a 
parent, even though he be himself a drunkard or a mod- 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 269 

erate drinker, who would object to have his children 
taught what he will be quite certain to admit is, for 
them, the "more excellent way" of never beginning to 
drink at all. In this age of science, none can object to 
the chemical and physiological lessons which indicate 
that total abstinence is consistent with nature and with 
reason, and all must commend the inculcation of that 
law of kindness which "counts in" our brother's danger 
along with our own, in making up the summary of rea- 
sons why a boy or a girl should " touch not, taste not, 
handle not." 

Miss Frances E. Willard. 



It has seemed to me that the highest range of human 
talent is distinguished, not by the power of doing well 
any one particular thing, but by the power of doing well 
anything which we resolutely determine to do. 

Francis Wayland. 



INSTRUCTORS IN JUSTICE. 

As the children in the schools of Greece were trained 
in the knowledge of learning and liberal arts, the chil- 
dren of the Persians attended their schools for the sake 
of learning justice. In order to accomplish this object 
the more quickly, it was not thought sufficient to ac- 
custom only their ears to instruction in justice, but they 
were taught to give just opinions on all matters which 
came up among them, and to fix upon the proper punish- 
ment for every error. Thus the teachers, as public in- 
structors in justice, devoted a large part of the day to 
hearing and correcting these opinions of the children. 

Xenophon. 



2/0 



EDUCATIONAL MOSAICS. 



TALENT AND VIRTUE. 



Great ill is an achievement of great powers ; 

Plain sense but rarely leads us far astray. 

Reason the means, affections choose our end ; 

Means have no merit, if our end amiss. 

If wrong our hearts, our heads are right in vain ; 

Hearts are proprietors of all applause, 

Right ends and means make wisdom : worldly-wise 

Is but half-witted, at its highest praise. 

Pygmies are pygmies still, though perched on Alps, 

And pyramids are pyramids in vales. 

Each man makes his own stature, builds himself : 

Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids : 

Her monuments shall last, when Egypt's fall. 

Edward Young. 



As words may be considered the garment of thoughts, 
so may language collectively be considered a picture of 
the soul. And since, therefore, thou findest pleasure in 
adorning thy body, do thou not bestow less care upon 
thy speech, which is the body of thy mind. 



ZCHOKEE. 



Man should act worthily of heaven. 
In this world he should do good, out of a pure heart. 
He should be pure in thought, word, and action. 
He should strive only after what is morally good. 
He should be holy, speak truth, and do no wickedness. 

Zoroaster. 



ALPHABETICAL LIST OF AUTHORS. 



Abbott, Jacob, 29, 
Adams, C. F,, Jr., 16, 26. 
Adams, Herbert B., 19. 
Addison, Joseph, 33. 
Adler, Felix, 30. 
Agricola, 31. 
Alden, Joseph, 25, 
Anderson, Martin B., 18, 21. 
Andrews, I. W., 23. 
Angell, James B., 23. 
Arbogast, 26. 
Aretinus, 19. 
Argyll, Duke of, 17, 32. 
Aristotle, 15, 17. 
Armstrong, S. C, 32. 
Arnold, Matthew, 15, 23, 28. 
Arnold, Thomas, 15, 31. 
Arnott, Neil, 32. 
Ascham, Roger, 25. 
Austin, Sarah, 21. 

Bacon, Francis, 33, 45. 
Bain, Alexander, 34, 41. 
Baldwin, J., 35. 
Bancroft, George, 37, 38, 44, 
Bardeen, C. W., 46. 
Barnard, F. A. P., 48. 
Barnard, Henry, 36. 
Barrow, Isaac, 39, 50. 
Bartlett, S. C, 49. 
Bascom, John, 38. 



Basedow, J. B., 42, 
Beecher, H. W., 49. 
Bicknell, Thomas W., 48. 
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 43. 
Bouton, Eugene, 43. 
Bowen, E. E,, 39, 51. 
Boyden, Albert G,, 37. 
Brooks, Edward, 50. 
Brougham, Lord, 47. 
Brown, Dr. John, 51. 
Browne, Sir Thomas, 46, 47, 
Browning, Oscar, 34. 
Buchanan, J. R., 45. 
Bulow, Baroness, 41. 

Calderwood, Henry, 68, 
Calkins, N. A., 66. 
Carlyle, Thomas, 58, 59, 64. 
Carter, Franklin, 69. 
Chace, Elizabeth B., 54. 
Chadbourne, Paul A., 63. 
Channing, W. E., 56, 63, 69. 
Charlemagne, 70. 
Chesterfield, Lord, 54, 60. 
Cicero, 62, 63, 66. 
Clarke, James Freeman, 57. 
Clay, Henry, 62. 
Coffin, Charles Carleton, 65. 
Coleridge, Samuel T., 53. 
Comenius, John Amos, 55, 67. 
Compayre, Gabriel, 60, 65, 67, 



2/2 



LIST OF AUTHORS. 



Condillac, 55, 69. 
Condorcet, 64. 
Confucius, 70. 
Cornwallis, Caroline F., 55. 
Corthell, T. W., 61. 
Currie, James, 58. 

Darling, Henry, 72, 76. 
Dawson, N. H. R., 70. 
Descartes, 79. 
Dickinson, J. W., 72, 75. 
Diderot, 78. 
Diesterweg, G., 75. 
Duclos, 73. 
Dunton, Larkin, 73. 
Dupanloup, 77. 
Dutton, S. T., 77. 
Dwight, M. A., 74. 
Dwight, Timothy, 71. 

Eaton, John, 84. 

Edmunds, George F., 87. 

Edson, A. W., 79. 

EdM'^ards, Richard, %2>' 

Eliot, Charles W., 82. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 81, 87. 

Erasmus, Z^. 

Erskine, Thomas, 81. 

Eschines, 85, 

Everett, Edward, 79, 85, 87. 

Faraday, Michael, 91, 95. 
Felton, C. C, 88. 
Fitch, J. G., 92, 97. 
Foster, John, 90. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 89. 
'Frederick the Great, 96. 
Freeman, Alice E., 90. 
Froebel, 93, 99. 
Froude, J. A., 93, 94, 97. 
Fuller, Thomas, 94, 96. 



Gallaudet, Thomas H,, 99. 
Garfield, James A., 100. 
Gates, Merrill Edwards, ill. 
Gibbon, Edward, 108. 
Gilman, Daniel C, 103, 104. 
Gilmore, J. H., 102. 
Godwin, Parke, no. 
Goethe, 112. 
Gray, Asa, 109. 
Green, Arnold, 106. 
Gregory, D. S., 105. 
Gregory, John M., loi. 
Grimke, T. S., 108. 
Guizot, 100. 
Gurney, Joseph John, 105. 

Hagar, Daniel B., 113. 

Hale, Edward Everett, 125. 

Hale, Sir Matthew, 121. 

Hales, J. W., 121. 

Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, 122, 127. 

Hancock, John, 113. 

Hare, J. C, 116, 125, 133. 

Harris, William T., 123, 131. 

Harrison, Frederick, 130. 

Haven, E. O., 119. 

Hazlitt, William, 141. 

Hegel, 113. 

Helps, Arthur, 118, 134. 

Higginson, Thos. Wentworth, 123. 

Hill, Thomas, 138. 

Hilliard, George S., 127. 

Hinsdale, B. A., 1 14. 

Hodge, Archibald Alexander, 134. 

Hofmann, August Wilhelm, 140. 

Holt, H. E., 139. 

Hood, Paxton, 119, 137. 

Hopkins, Mark, 115. 

Howe, Julia Ward, 126. 

Hudson, Henry N., 137. 



LIST OF AUTHORS. 



273 



Hunt, T. W., 136. 
Hunter, Thomas, 133. 
Huntington, Frederic D., 116, 135. 
Huxley, Thomas H., 119, 127, 129. 

Jacobi, Friedrich, 141. 
Johnson, Samuel, 142. 
Joynes, Edward S., 141. 

Kant, Immanuel, 143, 144. 
Kay, David, 144, 146. 
Kendrick, A. C, 145. 
Kingsley, Charles, 144. 
Klemm, L. R., 143. 

La Chalotais, 1 50. 
Lakanal, Joseph, 150. 
Lalor, John, 150. 
Landon, Joseph, 146. 
Langford, J. A., 153. 
Laurie, S. S., 147, 156. 
Lavater, 154. 
Leibnitz, G. W., 152. 
Lessing, G. E., 148. 
Lewis, Tayler, 154. 
Lincoln, J. L., 154. 
Livermore, Mary A., 149. 
Locke, John, 148, 153. 
Lowell, James Russell, 152. 
Luther, Martin, 156. 
Lyly, John, 148, 154. 
Lyon, Mary, 149. 

MacArthur, Arthur, 171. 
Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 160. 
Madison, James, 173. 
Mann, Horace, 161, 173. 
Marble, A. P., 172. 
Marcel, C., 163. 
Mason, John, 164. 
Masson, David, 164. 



Mathews, WilHam, 169. 
McCosh, James, 167, 168. 
Melanchthon, Philip, 163. 
Mill, John Stuart, 157, 159, 164. 
Miller, Hugh, 159. 
Milton, John, 162. 
Mitchell, Maria, 170. 
Montaigne, Michel, 161, 171. 
Morell, J. D., 157. 
Morgan, Thomas J., 174. 
Morley, John, 157, 161. 
Mowry, "William A., 168. 
Munger, T. T., 165. 



Nicole, 176. 
Niemeyer, 177. 
Northrup, B. G., 



76. 



Olmstead, Denison, 179. 
Orcutt, Hiram, 178. 

Paget, James, 191. 
Painter, F. V. N., 195. 
Palgrave, E. T., 192. 
Palmer, F, B., 182. 
Palmer, G. H., 183. 
Pape-Carpentier, Madame, 189. 
Parker, Francis W., 194. 
Parker, Theodore, 187. 
Payne, Joseph, 180. 
Payne, WilHam H., 190, 193, 
Peabody, A. P., 185. 
Pestalozzi, 187, 189. 
Philbrick, John D., 189. 
Philo, 194. 
Plato, 188, 193, 196. 
Plutarch, 182, 186. 
Porter, Noah, 180, 190. 

Quick, Robert Herbert, 197. 
Quintilian, 197, 198. 



274 



LIST OF AUTHORS. 



Rabelais, Francois, 201. 
Reymond, E. du Bois, 202. 
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 199. 
Richardson, Charles F., 208. 
Richter, Jean Paul, 201. 
Robertson, Frederick W., 2lo. 
Robinson, E. G., 206. 
Robinson, Otis H., 204. 
Rosenkranz, J. K. F,, 203. 
Rousseau, J. J., 201, 202, 206. 
Rueckert, 199. 
Ruskin, John, 205. 

Sanborn, Kate, 233. 

Sand, George, 234. 

Schiller, J. C. F., 220. 

Schopenhauer, Arthur, 225, 228. 

Sears, Barnas, 212. 

Seaver, E, P., 211. 

Sedgwick, Catherine M,, 236. 

Seelye, Julius H., 237. 

Seneca, 228, 234. 

Serbati, Antonio Rosmini, 236. 

Shaftesbury, Earl of, 211. 

Shedd, W. G. T., 226. 

Sheldon, W. E., 216. 

Short, Bishop, 230. 

Sill, E. R., 223. 

Simcox, Edith, 218. 

Smiles, Samuel, 214, 215, 223. 

Southey, Robert, 219. 

Spencer, Herbert, 215, 222, 225, 229. 

Sprague, Homer B., 230. 

Stanley, Lord, 227. 

Steele, J. Dorman, 234. 

Stephen, Sir James, 227. 

Stockwell, Thomas B., 220. 

Story, Joseph, 232. 

Sully, James, 217, 224. 

Swett, John, 213. 



Talleyrand, 249, 253. 
Tarbell, H. S., 247. 
Tate, T., 242. 
Taylor, Isaac, 245. 
Taylor, W. M., 250. 
Temple, Frederick, 238, 252. 
Tetlow, John, 245. 
Thackeray, W. M., 242. 
Thring, Edward, 246. 
Tillotson, Archbishop, 243. 
Tilton, F. W., 240. 
Todhunter, I., 246. 
Tourjee, Eben, 248. 
Tyler, William S., 243. 
Tyndall, John, 240, 247, 249. 

Vincent, J. H., 252. 
Von Gentz, 253. 

Walker, Francis A., 262. 
Watts, Isaac, 267. 
Wayland, Francis, 254, 264, 269. 
Whately, Richard, 264, 
Whewell, William, 256, 261. 
White, Andrew D., 266. 
White, E. E., 259. 
Wilberforce, William, 254. 
Wilkinson, W. C, 260. 
Willard, Emma, 265. 
Willard, Frances E., 268. 
Wilson, J. M., 258. 
Winship, A. E., 254. 
Woodward, C. M., 267. 
Woolsey, Theodore Dwight, 263. 
Wyttenbach, 258. 

Xenophon, 269. 

Young, Edward, 270. 

Zchokee, 270. 
Zoroaster, 270, 






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